Random Pieces
by Poohdog
Summary: Exactly what it sounds like. It's a bunch of one-shots, most of them in canon-verse, based in the Harry Potter series. Crazy Sirius, jealous Victoire among others. Latest Chapter Summary: Moody rants at whatever God is up there for starting the war again.
1. Watermelon

**Title: **Watermelon

**Disclaimer: **No, I do not own Harry Potter, surprise, surprise.

**Universe: **Canon, meshable with The Call and Appearances

**Time: **During the first war, Marauders still in Hogwarts

**Characters: **Ted, Nymphadora, and Andromeda Tonks

**Ships: **Slight Andromeda/Ted

**Genre:** Most just family with a bit of humor.

**Summary: **Ted Tonks is waiting for his wife with his four-year-old daughter Nymphadora, when Dora spots a lady who looks a lot like she has a watermelon in her stomach and of course that causes some questions Ted would prefer not to answer while sitting in a crowded waiting room.

"Daddy, daddy!" Dora squealed, running back over to him from where she had been staring at the pictures in old magazines for the past few minutes. She tripped over her feet, got back up, and kept scurrying forward as if nothing had happened.

"What is it?" he asked, reaching and picking her up as she pushed on his knees like she was trying to vault herself upwards, her grey eyes brightly shining. In her excitement her hair, which she had insisted on leaving to her shoulders and electric blue, had turned a violent shade of bright purple. She settled onto his lap and leaned towards his ear, her words coming out in a hurried four-year-old whisper: wet and nearly as loud as her regular voice.

"Daddy, that lady swallowed a watermelon seed!" She pulled away from his ear, caught his eyes, and pointed over at a young woman sitting across the St. Mungo's waiting room. Next to Ted and Nymphadora, a woman who looked to be in her mid forties laughed lightly.

"Dora, why do you think she swallowed a watermelon seed?" Ted asked, glancing over at the woman Dora had pointed towards. She was fairly young and was sitting, looking worriedly down the hall.

"Because she's got a watermelon growing in her tummy!" Dora exclaimed exasperatedly. Ted felt many pairs of eyes looking over at them. The woman next to him looked very amused. A man sitting across from them, who had been staring into space for the past five minutes suddenly came awake and gave a small smile. An older woman shook her head, and Ted was sure he heard her mutter something about "too young to have children" to her husband sitting next to her.

"Dora, shh, you need to use your inside voice."

"Oh, okay," she said in a breathy tone. "But Daddy, lookit. She's got a watermelon in there," she continued, her eyes wide with excitement and curiosity.

Ted stroked her hair. "That's not a watermelon in her tummy. It's a baby."

"She ate a baby!" The eyes came over towards them again. The woman next to him had broken down into full out laughter. He was receiving glares from the older couple as the wife shook her head, probably now fully convinced he was too young to have a child. Either that or she just didn't like Nymphadora's hair which had just changed in her surprise to stop-sign-red dreadlocks. Across from them, the man who had been spacing out earlier had begun to fully smile but was looking down at his shoes to hide it. They had even received a curious glance from the worried looking pregnant woman who was the subject of Nymphadora's fascination.

"Dora, inside voice," Ted stressed.

"Daddy, she ate a baby," Dora said in her whisper again, this time quite desperate. Ted pulled his arms more fully around her and she snuggled against his chest.

"She didn't eat a baby. There's a baby growing in her tummy."

"Oh," she concluded seeming relieved. Her hair turned to a soft yellow, possibly passable as blonde in a brief glance. She was silent for a moment and Ted looked down at her to see that she was thinking hard about something. "I guess I shouldn't eat watermelon seeds. I don't think my tummy's big enough to hold a baby." Now Ted couldn't help it. He laughed. Nymphadora turned her head and looked at him, seeming annoyed. The woman next to him was laughing behind her hand and the older woman muttered something about too young again. Ted could feel the man in their audience watching them like a pivoting moment on a primetime television show.

"Don't worry. She didn't eat a watermelon seed. If you accidently swallow a watermelon seed it's okay. They just taste icky and we don't want you to choke."

"Oh." Dora scrunched up her face in concentration again. "Then what kind of seed did she swallow?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Johansson?" a young male healer asked. Ted saw the older couple rise to their feet to follow him. As she was leaving the woman turned around and looked at him sharply.

"Just how old are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"I'm four!" Dora piped up brightly. The woman sitting beside him laughed again as Ted looked up at the couple.

"Forty-two. Surprising how well de-aging potions work, isn't it?" he asked, trying as well as he could to keep a straight face and the sarcasm out of his tone. The older woman looked startled before she hurried away.

"How old are you really if you don't mind my asking?" the laughing woman asked.

"Twenty-four."

"That's not so young."

"I should hope not. My wife's younger."

"My mummy's twenty-two!" Dora declared proudly.

"Thank you,-?" the woman paused, glancing at Ted.

"Dora."

"Dora," the woman repeated.

"My name's Nyff- Nynph-"

"Nymphadora," Ted answered for her.

"That's quite a mouthful."

"Yes," Ted sighed, again flashing to the debate he'd had, and lost, with Andromeda when their daughter was born.

"Ms. Krieger?" a clear female voice asked. Ted looked up too as his seat companion got to her feet.

"That's me," she declared. She looked back at Ted and Dora as she walked away. Nymphadora watched her for a moment before crawling out of Ted's lap into her chair.

"Daddy," she started. "What kind of seed did she swallow?" Ted flinched. He really didn't want to approach this kind of conversation with his four year old in the middle of a waiting room.

"A special kind. Like you came from swallowing a Nymphadora seed so you grew into a Nymphadora."

"I was in your tummy?" she asked in astonishment. Pink this time, her hair turned pink. The man across from them was still stifling his laughs.

"No. Only mums can have babies in their tummy."

"Oh." She considered this for a moment as she sat with her knees curled up, sitting sideways in the chair. "So I was in mummy's tummy?"

"Yes."

"I don't think I pro'ly liked that very much," she said seriously. "I don't like staying in real small places. And mummy's tummy is small!"

"Mmm," Ted agreed, not entirely sure how to respond. "Yes, you kicked a lot."

"But I wouldn't want to hurt her!" she startled, leaning forward and somehow managing to nearly fall out of the chair. Ted instinctively reached out and grabbed her before she hit the ground without skipping a beat.

"Oh, you didn't hurt her," Ted assured her as she settled back in the chair, her hair now calming to a quiet brown color. Then she decided to crawl back into his lap. Ted kept his hand on her back to catch her if she began to fall again. "She said it mostly just felt funny." Unless, of course, one counted the time her pride had been badly hurt when Dora kicked on her bladder right as she was laughing. It had taken all of Ted's energy not to laugh in his wife's face. Scratch that, he had laughed and Andromeda had hit him with a hex that made _him_ have to run to the bathroom. "She even let me feel her tummy when you were in there." Dora giggled, leaning her head against his chest.

"So I kicked you too?"

"Yep."

"And you didn't get mad?"

"You were just a baby. You didn't know you were kicking me or your mum."

"Do all baby's start in tummies?"

"Yes, everybody does."

"Whoa," Dora said, her hair changing over to dark blue waves. "That's a lotta people."

"It is."

"Daddy, how do they get out?" she asked in alarm.

"Mr. Rivers?" someone called. Ted looked up to see Andromeda in her healer's robes. She caught his eye and smiled at him as the man across from him got to his feet.

"Mummy!" Dora squealed half sliding, half falling out of Ted's lap.

"This little girl's yours?" the man asked as Ted stood up and walked over. Andromeda nodded as she bent down.

"Not right now Dora. You have to wait a minute, okay? I need to take Mr. Rivers to go see his daughter."

The man looked at Andromeda. She smiled at him. "She's awake. She's going to be fine. We're going to keep her here a while to recover from the curse but she will be okay," she assured the man. He grinned widely and suddenly hugged Andromeda as she was the closest person to him.

"Thank you!" he said, his eyes welling with tears of relief. Ted couldn't help but smile too as he scooped Dora up in his arms, settling her on his shoulders. She giggled happily. The man, Mr. Rivers, smiled up at her. "Very inquisitive little girl you have there," he mumbled seeming a bit embarrassed for his hug now.

"Yes, she can be," Andromeda said suspiciously. "Your daughter's in the Delta Jones ward if you need me to show you-"

"I know where it is. I passed it earlier when I was coming to the waiting room."

"Well in that case, be by guest," Andromeda told him kindly, stepping aside. The man, still grinning with relief took off down the hallway. Andromeda glanced back at the man and then looked at Ted and Dora. "So what was she being so inquisitive about?"

"You know, Dromeda, I have to go to work. I got called in and that's why we decided to wait here until you got done with your shift, so-" he leaned in and kissed her before he took Dora off his shoulders and handed her over. "I'll let Dora ask you her remaining questions."

"What questions?" Andromeda inquired as she let Dora down and squeezed her hand gently, sticking her tongue out at her to make her giggle.

"I'll let Dora ask them," Ted repeated as they started walking away towards the point where Ted could disapparate and Andromeda and Dora could floo home.

"What were you asking about Nymphadora?" Andromeda asked.

"Oh, I asked Daddy about the babies that grow in mummies tummies. He said I was even in _your_ tummy."

"Mmm, yeah, that's right" Andromeda agreed.

"Of course it's right. I do understand the concept," Ted laughed. Andromeda rolled her eyes at him.

"But, see, I don't understand how they get out." Ted smiled as he got to the point where he could disapparate. "And what happens if a mummy eats a seed on accident?"

"Eats a seed?" Andromeda asked, looking up at Ted. He grinned and then kissed her on the forehead.

"Bye, Dromeda, love you too." He ruffled Nymphadora's hair, currently an orangish shade, right before he left.


	2. Wolfsbane

**Title: **Wolfsbane

**Disclaimer: **No, I do not own Harry Potter, surprise, surprise.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Between the first and second wars

**Characters: **Damocles, Hector, and Emily Belby

**Ships: **None

**Genre:** In all honesty? Drama. Some family too.

**Summary: **Damocles Belby, member of the Slug Club, creator of the Wolfsbane Potion. Father. Damocles had a reason for creating the Wolfsbane Potion, a reason in the form of a girl he adopted when he met her hurt, hungry, and tired after a full moon.

Damocles Belby stared at the potion in front of him, not at all sure what to do with it. A strange array of reaction tubes and beakers stood in a hectic sort of order on the wide table he had been using for a desk. Beside him was a much used book, once blank and now nearly full with his scrawling hand. Still, he stared at the potion in front of him, inattentive to anything else. He didn't hear the soft footsteps of the girl behind him, nor was he in any way aware of her until she came up right beside him. She was reading over his notes. "Looks like you've gone about as far as you can testing it with cell samples," she told him seriously as she looked him over with her hazel eyes. Long blonde hair swept at her shoulders, surrounding her pale face, her tired eyes. She was wearing long sleeves but still he saw the thick white bandage looping around her left hand. He had helped her treat the bite marks along her arm three weeks before. It was almost healed now; something new would probably turn up in a week. Damocles stood up and kissed her forehead before beginning to close things down for the night.

"I suppose so," he agreed. "Now it's just a matter of finding-"

"I will," she told him bluntly.

"Emily," he sighed, looking at her. He saw a glint of hope, of fierceness in her eyes.

"Dad, you know I will," she protested. "I'm seventeen. I'm of age. I can-"

"And you know exactly what could go wrong."

"And you know exactly what could go right," she pleaded. "Dad don't- please," she said desperately.

"Let someone else try it first."

"And you're not going to feel just as guilty if someone else gets hurt in my place?" she asked him.

"I'll feel just as guilty," he told her, pushing gently on her back to push her up the stairs. "But at least I won't have to deal with nearly as much grief."

"You'd have to deal with someone else's though. With me there's only you."

"Emily!" he scolded her. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, it's true," she reminded him before walking up the stairs.

"We'll talk about this later," he sighed. She nodded, knowing that was the end of the discussion for now, though he knew well that she wasn't about to let the subject drop for good. "What's that smell?"

"I made spaghetti," she told him with a shrug but a small smile played on her lips.

"You didn't tell me you were making supper," he told her with a warm smile that touched his eyes. He sniffed the air. "With garlic bread too?" She nodded happily. "Did I ever tell you you're my favorite daughter?"

"All the time," she laughed as she led the way into the kitchen. He knew she was trying to butter him up; he knew she knew his favorite food was spaghetti. And as he looked across the table later that night at the young woman in long sleeves with her bare feet swinging under the table, he realized he didn't have a clue who was going to win this battle. There was no knowing with Emily. She was quite a warrior when she wanted to be.

_It had been years before when he'd first seen her, never having a clue how much he would grow to love her. He and his brother Hector had been out in the back of Hector's house, the cold light from the moon illuminating their path. The trees around them still seemed to echo the screams of Hector's oldest son as he came running back to the house, claiming to have seen a werewolf. The boy's little sister had agreed with him, her face white and pale but the fact of the matter was that they were only five and seven; how on Earth would they be able to distinguish a werewolf and even if they did how would they manage to outrun one? _

_Damocles froze along with his brother when he heard something rustling in the bushes and then it flew toward them but it was quickly stopped when Damocles conjured a cage around it. It hit its nose and whimpered weakly and Damocles saw exactly why his niece and nephew had managed to outrun the werewolf. It was only a weak, half-starved pup, not even half grown. A fully grown healthy werewolf would have managed to climb out of the cage by now but this creature was so weak that all it could do was sit in the cage and growl at them pitifully, snapping its jaw._

_"What do we do with it?" Hector asked, staring at the muddle of skin, bones, and fur that had chased after his oldest son and his daughter, the apple of his eye. Damocles shook his head as he stared at the small werewolf, its yellow eyes glaring fiercely at them as if daring them to come just a little closer to the cage. The two brothers stood in silence watching it._

_"I suppose we wait until morning," Damocles said finally. "Then we figure out where it came from." Hector nodded and returned to watching the savage little creature. Together they stood there for a long time before Hector finally went in to tell his wife what had happened. Damocles stayed and watched the werewolf as it began to pace. It had light brown fur that seemed patchy and dirty with the bones seemingly directly underneath of it in some spaces. He wondered if whoever it was would make it through the transformation back into a person; he wondered which way he was hoping things would be, death or life for the little werewolf. But he conjured a chair and watched._

_As dawn came around the creature began to howl in pain, its body shaking, whimpering overcoming its whole body like huge sobs. He couldn't help but feel his heart twinge a little, even for the creature who had been after his own throat for the past few hours of the night. But he watched as the little werewolf turned into a little girl who curled up almost immediately, unaware of anything, just desperately tired. Damocles stepped closer, taking down the cage as he went._

_The transformation into a werewolf had torn her clothes and her small body was exposed to the world. Her blond hair was at odd angles, mussed and tangled. Scratches and other wounds lined her body and her ribs stuck out; she was far skinnier than any child ought to be. Before he could even think what he was doing, he reached down and picked up the small girl. He wasn't thinking about the terrifying creature she had been moments before. All he was thinking about was that she was tiny and starving, hurt and dirty. So he walked up to his brother's house with the girl who was too hurt and sick to wake even as she was jolted in his arms on the path back to the house, and persuaded his sister-in-law to help him treat the girl's injuries as best they could._

_It was twilight when she woke up in Hector's spare bedroom and she looked around the room like she didn't know quite what to believe. She looked at her arm covered in bandages up until she got to her upper arm which was covered by the sleeve of an old nightgown of his niece's. Her eyes then fell on his, the light hazel looking at him and he smiled gently at her. "Are you hungry?" he asked her. She nodded wildly and he slid over toward the bed with the tray he'd gotten from the kitchen. She began to eat with a fever he'd never seen in a small child, especially not the vegetables she had attacked first. He felt guilty as he pushed the tray away, trying to get her to slow down. She looked up at him, seeming about ready to cry; she was hungry. "You just need to slow down. You're going to make yourself sick." She nodded dismally and he pushed the tray back toward her. Cautiously she picked up a piece of toast, her eyes pinned on him before she began to eat it, going faster and faster until she was wolfing it down just the same as before. He sighed, not sure what to do._

_"Can you tell me your name?" he asked her. He and Hector had tried going to the Ministry and reporting the girl and they'd said they would keep an eye out for any reports but he knew it wasn't likely. There was a far greater chance the child had been abandon once she had been bitten. It wasn't uncommon; it wouldn't be reported._

_"Emily," she told him as she swallowed her toast._

_"What about your last name?" She shook her head to tell him she didn't know as she reached for more food. "Emily, you need to eat slower. It'll make you sick to eat so fast."_

_"But my tummy's empty," she said, her eyes filling with tears._

_"It'll still make you sick to eat so fast. You need to go slow since you haven't had anything in your stomach for a while." She nodded slowly and then returned to eating very, very slowly. Just like before, her pace picked up speedily as she went. He sighed and went back to trying to get her to slow down to little avail before finally resorting to taking the tray away and having to hand food to her piece by piece to make sure she went slowly._

The topic of the potion didn't come up again that night after it was finished, thirteen years after he'd found the little werewolf pup. They were mostly silent through dinner. Emily always took eating as serious business and for her, he'd long ago realized, it was. Transforming took a huge toll on her body; she seemed to always be spending two weeks preparing for the full moon and two weeks recovering. Not having enough to eat before or after a full moon could lead to her living life like a zombie for weeks at a time, never having enough energy to fully function. He'd made sure since she was in his care that she'd had enough to eat but then there was still the time when she was little, when he'd first met her and she slept most of the first month, slept and ate and tried to recover. After dinner that night, she went back to working on her lessons, asking him for help when she needed it. He was still impressed with the scores she had gotten when she had taken her O.W.L.'s, finding pride in the scores to be honest. He had homeschooled her. Albus Dumbledore had said he could allow her to come to Hogwarts, if she wanted; she wouldn't be the first werewolf to go through Hogwarts but Emily hadn't wanted to go. She'd been too afraid of what would happen if once, just once she got out during a full moon. Damocles couldn't help but wonder if some of that was also due to her fear of making wizarding friends who might find out exactly what was different about her. She preferred to be with muggles.

He went to bed that night listening to the noises of her getting ready for bed in the bathroom. She stepped into his room before she went to bed and said good-night before he heard the soft sound of her feet heading off to her own room. For a while he lay awake and stared at the ceiling. He didn't want to take a chance with her, not until the potion had been tested. What if something went horribly wrong? He didn't think his potion was wrong but there was always the chance. It had been thirteen years since he'd first found Emily; thirteen years of measuring the months in moons and not days; thirteen years of caring for a girl he felt no shame in declaring as his daughter. He would drink the potion himself before he let her have the first sip he decided. But that wouldn't do much good. Tomorrow he would go to the Ministry and hope he could find someone who would be willing to give the potion a try without so much as one trial run. He hated going to the Ministry anymore. For thirteen years there were always those who gave him looks of disapproval even hate for his decision. Thirteen years, one-hundred forty-seven cycles of the moon.

_"She can't stay here," Hector said firmly._

_"Where is she supposed to go? Her family abandoned her after she got bitten."_

_"The girl's a werewolf, Damocles. Don't you get that? A werewolf. I admit abandoning her was a little harsh. They should have brought her right to Greyback but-"_

_"Brought her to Greyback?" Damocles asked suddenly standing up. "Bring her to- He's most likely the one who bit her, do you know that?"_

_"All the more reason for him to take care of her."_

_"She's a little girl Hector! Do you know what he would do to her? If she even survived the first year, what kind of life could she possibly have being brought up down there, just a chew toy for a bunch of-"_

_"For a bunch of her own kind! She's too dangerous to be around people, around other kids. What kind of life could she possibly have here? It'd be far kinder to leave her with Greyback. There she might be able to gain some place in their society but here she'll always be nothing," Hector argued, standing up to face his younger brother. Damocles glared at him._

_"Her own kind is us. We are her kind," he argued. "If one of your kids was sick-"_

_"It's not the same!"_

_"Yes it is!" he argued back._

_"If one of my kids was sick, they wouldn't be able to kill anyone because of it. That girl can. Don't let her fool you, Damocles, she would have killed my kids, killed us if she could have."_

_"When she was a wolf!" he argued back. "Right now she's a girl and a sweet, quiet little girl at that. She didn't deserve any of this, much less does she deserve to spend her life as a plaything for Fenir Greyback!"_

_"And what else do you propose?" Hector asked. "What else could you possibly do for her? You've nursed her back to health so just take her to-"_

_"I'm taking her with me!" he decided, the words surprising him and yet he somehow knew they had been coming. His brother's eyes narrowed._

_"No."_

_"Yes."_

_"You can not raise a werewolf."_

_"I can if I want to. Her parents have given her up and I'm not giving her to Greyback. She's coming with me."_

_"Not if you want to be part of this family she isn't. If you-"_

_"So my choice is between you, Sarah, and the kids, and her?" he asked coolly._

_"Yes," Hector answered, his eyes lowering slightly, suspiciously._

_"Then I choose her," Damocles replied. "You can take care of yourself. She can't." And with that he had gone and picked up Emily's sleeping figure and taken her from his brother's house to his own. She had been at Hector's a week before the Ministry had found her parents and found that there was no way to get them to take her back. She was, as they had suspected, abandon after being bitten. The Ministry had offered to take her, but Damocles knew exactly where she would end up, right where Greyback wanted her, in his clutches. So he had tried to persuade his brother to take her, another daughter just a year younger than his own. He had refused. It was only then he'd realized he would take her himself. It was a decision that would change his life; it was a decision he would never regret._

Damocles yawned as he woke up early in the morning. He walked through the hallway to the bathroom, passing by Emily's wide open door. She had buried herself beneath her blankets again, curled up in a ball, her pillow abandon. He smiled lightly and then walked went further down the hallway. Slowly, he meandered about, getting dressed before going down in the basement again. He sold Potions for a living, mostly selling them to St. Mungo's and other smaller clinics. It was with St. Mungo's he had found funding for his project with the Wolfsbane project as he called it. He had gone in not knowing what exactly he was looking for, just some kind of help. It had taken adopting Emily for him to realize just how little he knew about werewolves; it had taken adopting Emily for him to realize just how little the entire wizarding community knew about werewolves. After years of research, he was now considered the expert. He found this very amusing. He thought any werewolf knew more than he did. More than once he had thought he'd reached an epic conclusion only to have Emily look at him with a facial expression that very clearly said, "Duh." For a moment he glanced over at his work bench where he was brewing Wolfbane before looking at the potions he was intending on finishing today. Then he looked back again and flew up the stairs.

"Emily!" His feet hammered up the stairs. He knew what she had done. She knew what she had done. "Emily!" he called out again as he entered her room. She sat up in bed, looking at him with tired, knowing eyes.

"I'm fine," she told him sleepily. "I wrote down everything until I fell asleep last night," she said, reaching for a notebook.

"I told you not to take it."

"I told you I was of age."

"I told you it could be dangerous." She looked at him as if she didn't care as he darted to her side and grabbed her shoulders. "I told you not to!" he shouted at her and saw in an instant her resolve begin to fade. Tears were starting to glimmer in her eyes.

"But you can't test it on someone else," she told him, sniffling. "Nobody would take it, not for a long time and I don't want to- I don't want to-" she couldn't finish her sentence. She began to cry. And as much as he wanted to scold her and shake her for putting herself in such danger, for stealing part of the potion the night before, he understood. For the past one-hundred forty-seven moons, he'd watched and desperately hoped that by some miracle the moon wouldn't rise on the twenty-ninth day, he'd watched his daughter's health come and go, more temperamental than the wind, he'd heard the howls of pain that raked her body when she transformed and when she bit and scratched at herself. While he wanted to scold her, what could he do? No father could deny his daughter such a chance to end the at least part of her pain. She had taken a risk, he knew that. She knew anyone else would be far more wary of his help in the form of a potion; it could sit forever waiting to be tested. If she took it that meant two things: it meant he could get it to others faster and she could be free from biting and scratching at herself for at least one moon. Emily was smart. She could see that objectively the situation was win-win. She just didn't understand how much to him, losing her would hurt.

At Hogwarts, Damocles had always excelled in Potions. He did well in other subjects too but Potions was his best subject. Professor Slughorn had always found him very interesting and he had tried to make himself go to the gatherings Slughorn organized but irrevocably, the always ended with him saying something stupid to a girl, blushing as red as a tomato, and hurrying away to bang his head into his bed post for the next few hours wishing he weren't such an idiot. He had a close group of friends, most of whom he still talked to, at least occasionally, though he had lost a couple when he'd adopted Emily. But when it came down to it, Damocles was always a bit of a loner. He worked for himself, letting his Potions skills be for hire; he had very few serious relationships in his past. Left alone he could very much have imagined himself living in his basement and being seen about once a month when he made deliveries until he wilted away from forgetting to eat. He'd quickly discovered that he couldn't do that with a child.

She was a quiet little thing and the first few months she had been painfully shy, even around him except right after a transformation when her only thought was how hungry she was. He had found that if he needed to, he could simply put her down in the basement with the wireless and some toys and she could entertain herself well enough while he was working on potions in the same room. Back then, in those first few months he had still been trying to find someone else to take her. He was busy and single. The girl needed a better family. While she followed him with her eyes whenever he moved, he hadn't yet gotten the feeling that she cared for him like a father; he didn't yet care for her like a daughter. But whatever his feelings for her, she was still there and she needed to eat, sleep, bathe, and do other things besides sit in front of a desk working on Potions all day. The jolt shook him to making sure he was doing the same things. Even when she had gotten big enough to take care of herself, she was still there, reminding him, pestering him into taking care of himself. For so long he had been dependent on her.

But there was more to it than just the basic necessities. Slowly, he had grown to realize that he couldn't give her up and yet he would if he thought she would have a better life. Gradually, she began to warm up to him and he'd see her smile and sometimes even chatter on in her little voice until one night he sat there reading her a story before bed and she crawled right into his lap without even so much as a glance at his face to ask if it was all right. And he had realized how close he had grown to her, that he'd never felt this way about anyone. He had gone through the relationships he knew, trying to place it. Romance had nothing to do with it, that was quickly out and he didn't really feel like her friend; they were on two completely different levels. "Damocles?" she asked softly, interrupting his thoughts. "Are you my daddy now?" She looked up at him with those wide hazel eyes. He smiled back and nodded, realizing how much he meant his answer after he'd given it. "Okay," she replied then looked at the book. "Are you going to read the story?" And he had chuckled.

Since then, he'd told Emily about that incident and she had smiled at him and laughed a little but she hadn't seen it the way he had. Emily never saw anything about herself the way he did. He knew, much as he tried to do away with it, that there was a part of her that always saw herself as a burden he had to bear. She thought of herself as not having a means of making money and dragging him down in society; she didn't see how dead he would be without her. She didn't see how good it had felt to him to have someone give him the name Daddy. She only saw that she had bound herself to him long ago, ready to always drag him down. He looked at her now as she sat down on her bed, still not realizing how far he would fall without her.

"I swear Emily, this had better work," he told her, shaking his head. "It had better work." He was still nearly crying with relief when he went to go report his findings to St. Mungo's a week later. Wolfbane had worked in the first trial. Emily had stayed sane.

**All right, so I think too much. In the sixth book, Marus Belby tells Slughorn that his father and his uncle (the creator of the Wolfsbane potion) didn't get along very well. So I wanted to know why. Well, not a whole lot of people really right about Belby. So I came up with my own reason and that turned out to be Emily. I hope you think my explanation was logical and I hope you liked it!**

**Now, explanation for this thing in general. I've realized I've got a ton of Harry Potter one-shots and it's driving me mad. So I figured I'd just post them all in one story. I'm going to slowly be moving some of my other one-shots over to this story but for now there's only two.**

**Anyway, have a good day and please review!**


	3. The Issue of Snogging

**Title: **The Issue of Snogging

**Disclaimer: **No, I do not own Harry Potter, surprise, surprise.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **During and right after the epilogue

**Characters: **All of the next generation Weasleys at least mentioned plus Bill, Percy, George, Ron, Ginny, Harry, Hermione, and Teddy

**Ships: **Teddy/Victore, bit of Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny, and Fleur/Bill

**Genre:** Family and bit of Romance

**Summary: **Unfortunately during the epilogue we only see part of the Weasley family. What about the other half? Where were Percy and George for instance? Well, Bill was wishing they weren't with him, especially when he figures out what his oldest daughter was doing on the other side of the platform.

Bill Weasley was beginning to wonder if there was anyway he could legally kill two of his brothers. They wouldn't stop! Yes Percy liked rules and yes George hated them but didn't they have any respect for the fact that he was standing right there. Dominique gave him a knowing look and then glanced toward the train. She hardly wanted to stay and listen anymore. "I'll see you at Christmas," he told his youngest daughter. She nodded, looking up at him with her mother's eyes. "Keep an eye on Louis and Fred, will you? I know they somehow managed to prevent half of the letters the school tries to send us from getting home."

"I'll keep an eye on them, but I won't tattle," she replied stubbornly.

"I know. But just keep an eye out that they're not getting hurt."

"I know," she nodded.

"And good luck on the team this year," he added. She smiled. "And don't over-stress yourself about O.W.L.'s, all right? They're a big deal but there's no need to work yourself into a panic. You'll do fine," he assured her. She smiled at him lightly and then he leaned forward and gave her a hug. "All right, go run away," he sighed. George and Percy's voices escalated. "Love you Dom."

"Take me with you," Molly murmured, looking over at her cousin and uncle. Her twin sister Lucy had gone glassy eyed, not paying any attention. Without meaning to, her argument with her cousin Fred over whether the Canons had any chance at losing by less than fifty points this year had prompted her father, Percy, to start citing broomstick regulations and her uncle George to start protesting each one. Fred had escaped long ago with Bill's youngest, Louis to find a place on the train.

"At least say good-bye, Molly," Bill chuckled. She nodded, walked over to her sister, tapped Lucy on the shoulder to wake her from a stupor and the two of them quickly said good-bye. Percy jumped as though coming out of a trance and gave his daughters each a quick hug before they raced off toward the train.

"Love you too dad," Dominique called before heading off in another direction, presumably looking for her friends. George began looking around for his son.

"Fred said good-bye already, Dad. You told him not to do anything you wouldn't," Roxanne told him with a sigh. She seemed very annoyed that her father still had a hold on her hand. Bill gave her a sympathetic look and glanced around the station. He thought he saw a tall redhead in the distance, perhaps Ron and he debated going over to talk to them instead of staying next to the pair of four-year-olds he had to call brothers. Ron at least had graduated into the range of a seven year old where he could sometimes compromise (Bill gave Hermione credit for that one) and found the word "fart" one of the most amusing things to ever have been uttered. But Victore had gone to find a place for her trunk ages ago and Bill wanted to say good-bye to her too. He was wondering what was taking her so long. And he would feel like the worst uncle in the world if he left poor Roxanne there by herself, stuck to her father by his grip on her hand. The train gave a final whistle.

"Daddy, please let go of my hand. I want to wave to Fred," Roxanne argued. George gave her hand a friendly squeeze and then let it go. Roxanne backed up a few steps and then put herself right next to Bill. He gave her a warm smile.

"At least you didn't have to grow up with them in the same house," he muttered. His niece giggled as a graceful figure came running toward them.

"Bye Dad!" Victore called, giving him a quick hug. She looked flustered, her hair messed up and her cheeks a bit pink.

"Bye Tori. Love you."

"Yeah, you too Dad," she called running toward the train. Bill glared around suspiciously. Roxanne had started to giggle. Percy and George kept arguing. Victore had just managed to jump on the train before it started moving.

"Where's Fred?" Roxanne asked desperately. Bill grabbed his niece and picked her up, putting her on top his head like he had done his own kids what felt like yesterday. Now his youngest was thirteen, starting his third year. Bill sighed again to himself. "There he is!" Roxanne yelped, pointing. Bill put his left hand on her leg to keep her steady and waved with his right as he saw his son and Fred in the train window. Further along, he saw James with his friends along with Albus and Rose and then Dominique with another member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Dominique smiled and waved back, sticking her tongue out at Roxanne. The last of the train went by and Bill took Roxanne off of his head.

"What do you say we go find Ron and Ginny?" he asked her in a low voice. Roxanne nodded eagerly, glancing back at her father, who had paused in arguing to wave to his son and was now right back at it. Bill took Roxanne's hand, not wanting to lose her in the flurry of people now heading toward the platform, eager to get a good place in the line to leave. They headed off toward where he had seen Ron's head earlier, or at least what he hoped had been Ron's head. He glanced behind him to find that Percy and George weren't totally oblivious; they were meandering after him, or at least George was following his daughter and Percy was following George.

"Roxanne!" Lily yelped as she saw her cousin. Roxanne was right in between Rose and Lily in age and was often eagerly included in their gossip. "Guess what? Teddy and Victore are going to get married!"

"What?" Bill asked before Roxanne even had a chance to respond. George paused in his arguing, looking like he was doing everything he could not to laugh. Ginny had flinched and was giggling a little. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all looked away. And then Bill saw him, the lanky metamorphmagus whose hair was beginning to turn pink. Bill glared at him.

"They are not," Roxanne argued. "Tori's still in school."

"Yeah but James saw them snogging," Lily said, stretching out the last word to make her point.

"He what?" Bill asked, his eyes on Teddy. He swallowed, resetting his hair to its usual turquoise and took a step backwards.

"So?" Hugo asked. "I saw Molly kiss that friend of hers last year over Christmas Break and she's not marrying him. Lucy said she likes somebody else."

"Molly did what?" Percy asked. George began to chuckle.

"But it's different with Teddy and Tori," Roxanne argued, suddenly switching to Lily's side. "Isn't it?" she asked, looking over at Teddy. Bill glared at Teddy, waiting for his answer, not sure if a yes or a no would be better.

"Of course," Teddy assured Roxanne. "Molly's already over Calvin and I'm not going to be over Tori for a long time." He looked up at Bill after he said it and Bill kept glaring but he didn't take another step forward. Teddy may have slightly redeemed himself.

"Calvin who?" Percy asked, eyeing Teddy.

"Um, you know I'm not sure," Teddy said, quickly meeting Percy's eyes, seeming glad to not have to look at Bill anymore. "You could ask Lucy. She likes Calvin's older brother now."

"His older- How much older?" Percy asked wildly.

"Fifth or sixth year maybe? Definitely not seventh," Teddy replied. "I don't think seventh anyway. I'm not really- all my information is about third or fourth hand."

"Is it fun?" Roxanne asked suddenly, looking at Teddy.

"Is what fun?"

"Snogging," Roxanne clarified.

"Yeah, it looks gross," Hugo decided. Bill decided that Hugo was after his heart.

"No it doesn't," Lily protested. "It is fun, isn't it Teddy?" she asked. Bill looked back at Teddy who had somehow managed to inch himself backwards so that he was now nearly against a wall. Harry and George were now also fixing him with scrutinizing gazes. Ron and Ginny were chuckling and giggling respectively. Hermione looked like she was fighting hard not to laugh and Percy seemed oblivious to it all, comprehending the fact that his twins were indeed teenagers.

On some level, Bill realized that he ought to feel a bit sorry for Teddy. The young man of nineteen was completely trapped. If he said yes he would be dead in instants. If he said no then word would definitely get back to Victore, especially with Lily and Roxanne right there. Still he didn't expect Teddy's answer. "Most fun thing I've ever done, Lils, at least when it's with Tori. Bye now," he said all in a rush and then took off in the direction of Percy, slipping around the absent Weasley, breaking Hermione's control completely down.

"Gross!" Hugo exclaimed.

"Harry, any objections if I kill your godson?" Bill asked.

"Nope," Harry decided.

"Thanks," Bill told him as he pulled out his wand took off after Teddy.

"Want any help?" George offered, running behind him.

"Wait a minute, I need to know more about this Calvin!" Percy hollered after them. "Then you can kill Teddy."

"How long before Rose kisses somebody? She'll actually tell us about it," Lily asked Roxanne.

"What!" Ron exclaimed. The laughs of Ginny and Hermione echoed around the platform.

**Well anyway, pretty self-explanatory. Make up your own mind how much harm comes to Teddy. Hope you like it and please review? As a birthday present? Please?**


	4. Strings

**Title: **Strings

**Disclaimer: **Believe it or not, I do not own Harry Potter

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Between the fifth and sixth books

**Characters: **Tonks, Dumbledore, mentions of many members of the Order plus trio and Ginny

**Ships: **Remus/Tonks

**Genre:** 'Fraid it's mostly angsty

**Summary: **Angry and hurt, Tonks confronts Dumbledore on the assignment that Remus is using to drive her away. The question is how much truth does she stumble upon in anger?

"You can't do this!" she yelled at him as she came into his office and he looked up from his desk to face her. She had that fierce look in her eye, the one he had seen in Sirius's when he informed Dumbledore that he was innocent two years ago, the one her aunt wore in her court case when she denied nothing as long as she was standing up for her Dark Lord, the one Tonks's mother had given him years ago when he had caught her out of bed and she had insisted that she had nothing to do with what her sister was doing; he later found out she was out of bed sending a letter to Ted.

"What is it I have done, Nymphadora?" The usage of her name made pain flicker across her eyes rather than the slight annoyance it usually brought.

"You knew he'd go, even if you gave him the option to say no. You know he thinks the world of you and would never refuse your request," she replied, her voice shaking. She was angry and hurt, and she was fighting back tears because of it.

"Are you accusing me of manipulating him?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at her. For a moment she looked so small, like a little girl who had let loose a secret she knew she wasn't supposed to tell. Her hand began to tug on her hair and she began to shake her head. Then she stopped.

"Yes," she said, her voice nearly a whisper, her hand still playing with her hair, but somehow she had gained decades in an instant. Her yes was not based on a childish desire to win an argument but on some conclusion she had reached and knew she was right about. What was more, she knew he knew she was right. Those dark-grey eyes looked up though her head was slightly bent down. She didn't look ashamed; she looked ready to fight.

"And if I am?" he asked her calmly.

"You can't do this!" she hollered again. "You can't. You just- He's going to get hurt and then- and then I don't know what I'll do." And the tears that had been threatening to come started bubbling up in her eyes. "You know it's nearly hopeless. That this might just be a dead end. And I know you think you need someone to try and that he was just there. He's always been just there. You've been able to use him since he entered the Order because he's got a good heart and he's a good fighter and he thinks he owes everything to you. But you can't do this. Send someone else to find out what's going on. Send someone but him."

"Do you think, perhaps, your love affair is clouding your judgment?" he questioned evenly. She looked at him like he was an idiot. To be honest, he rather liked getting that look. It had been a long time since anyone had given him a look like that and it was rather refreshing to have someone be that honest.

"Of course it is. How can you love someone and not have it cloud your judgment? But that doesn't mean I don't have reasoning. Just because I can't see clearly, doesn't mean I can't hear as well as ever, doesn't mean I can't smell when something's not right. If he goes with them, it will tear him apart, more than anyone else you could send. He already thinks he's less than everyone else and putting him down there will only make him believe he's more right."

"He is the best one for the job. I know he is as human as the next person but he is still impeded by lycanthropy. No one else in the Order could do the same."

"The smells can be faked for a few hours, a few days, maybe even a few weeks if need be. So can the scars, everything but the transformation. You could get all the information you want through someone else, someone who will be hurt less by going down there. The only difference is that he can stay for more than one moon cycle and they can't. And you know the chances of helping anyone or gaining more information are slim by that point anyway. You could send anyone but him."

"Please, try and see reason," he instructed. "I know you love him and I am in no way trying to get in the way of that but-"

"No, that would be him," she shot back, her tears still leaving wet streaks down her face but they had stopped welling in her eyes. "But you knew that. You don't like it, but you know. You took control of him a long time ago and you've watched him lose everyone. You've known that it would make him more scared the more he fell in love with someone because everyone he's cared about before has gone." Her tears began to rush back into her eyes. "You knew he'd push me away at some point, with some trigger. But it's just another sacrifice that has to be made, right? Just like his health? You can break both our hearts for your cause."

"I would never wish ill on Remus or yourself," he told her sincerely.

"I'm not saying you wish it; I'm saying you're willing to tolerate it," she insisted, pushing away her tears. Anger and hurt still shifted back and forth in her eyes. "After all, it gives you a stronger string to pull, doesn't it? You've got Mad-Eye Moody by the Hufflepuff Auror string. He wants to do good, wants the world to be fair, and he's got an incredible amount of loyalty. And you thought you could get me by the same string. But then this comes along and look at what's come into your hands?" she said snidely before she sniffled. "You're second Hufflepuff Auror has fallen in love with one of the people you already have on an almost steel string. She's tied to him meaning that while he's doing your bidding she's tied even more tightly to you."

"Nymphadora," he started, letting some anger into his voice.

"And what about Harry?" she continued, ignoring him. "He's just lost Sirius which leaves one friend of his father's left. One friend who you're sending off out of contact. So the only one left for Harry to turn to, is you. Even more marvelous pull you've got on him right there."

"Nymphadora," he said a little louder.

"And if you've got Harry, you've got the Weasleys. Because Molly and Arthur love him like a son. Ron loves him like a brother. Hermione too which gets you her I suppose. And Ginny is frankly in love with him, deny it though she may. And if you've got Molly and Arthur, you've got Bill. If you've got that much of the family, you've got Charlie, Fred, and George, don't you?"

"If you would please," he began in a low voice, but Tonks was getting hysterical.

"Doge has been your friends since Hogwarts, Mundungus you've gotten out of trouble with the law, Kingsley's got an Auror's sense of due-gooding combined with the Ravenclaw awe of knowledge which makes you absolutely amazing to him. You were McGonagall's favorite teacher and the one who gave her a job. I'm not sure about Hestia but Dedalus- Dedalus-" she was unable to finish, her breath becoming more and more unsteady, her eyes more full of tears that were splashing down her face. She was trying desperately to keep from sobbing; she shut her eyes and he saw her body hiccough with sobs she refused to let out of her mouth.

"I can assure you that everything I do, I try to do for the best of the whole situation," he told her in a lighter tone. She looked up at him, her eyes sad and wet with tears.

"You know, that sounds an awful lot like the 'for the greater good' in History class," she replied, her voice low. She wiped at her face, grabbed her cloak and left his office. He stayed frozen at his desk, even after she had gone. He knew she didn't know how far below the belt she had just hit him; he knew he was still going to send Remus. What he didn't know was how much truth there were to her words about his strings.

Then again, if he thought about it, maybe he knew her words said in fury were dead right. Maybe part of him was glad to have a tighter string around Nymphadora Tonks even if he hated the price.

**Sorry if I've completely screwed up Dumbledore. I was trying to play around with his perspective a little but he's so nearly-omnipotent it's hard! I'm not sure if I think a conversation like this really happened but I can imagine Tonks pacing around and thinking she should go yell at Dumbledore but actually just keeping it to herself. Mostly, it's Tonks venting and once she cools down, she'd think she'd been quite silly. As for Dumbledore, I'd imagine the conversation would be forgiven but not forgotten…**


	5. We're Just Dead

**Title: **We're Just Dead

**Disclaimer: **Yes, indeed, I do own Harry Potter. I'm also Elvis and Amelia Earhart. *rolls eyes*

**Universe: **AU, I suppose. Although you could take it as something that just winds up forgotten.

**Time: **Well, Marauders sixth year/Harry's sixth year/Teddy's sixth year

**Characters: **Sirius,Harry, Teddy, James, Peter, Remus

**Ships: **It's not a shipper fic but I suppose there are mentions of Lily/James, Remus/Tonks, and Harry/Ginny.

**Genre:** Humor? And a lack of sleep (which should be a genre and you know it)

**Summary: **Sirius should have been a seer. Then again, how could his dream of the James's look-alike and the turquoise-haired boy possibly be the real future?

James was sitting on his bed in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory in his pajamas while he read what appeared to be his potions book. Sirius rolled his eyes, wondering what on earth his friend was up to when he noticed a lot of yellow on the other side of the room. There he saw another bed and another boy, one he didn't know. This boy was sitting on his four poster bed working on an assignment of some type. The most striking thing about him was that he had bright turquoise colored hair. Sirius stared between the two of them, piecing together that he was not actually in the Gryffindor dormitory but rather a hybrid with one bed from the Gryffindor boys' dormitory and one bed from what appeared to be the Hufflepuff one. Neither of the other boys seemed remotely phased by this; then again they were absolutely buried in their respective tasks. Sirius sighed and decided to go ask James what was going on when he realized he was frozen to the floor. He couldn't move and he realized with a jolt, he couldn't see himself either. He was frozen and invisible and had to just hope that someone would run into him and discover he was there. Great.

To his left, James turned the page in his book, looked at something for a moment then shut the cover and moved to put the book somewhere else. It was then that James finally noticed the Hufflepuff boy. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" James demanded. Only it wasn't James. Sirius blinked, thinking he was seeing things, but no. This boy definitely had bright green eyes, very different from James's hazel. The turquoise haired boy looked up blinking and then raised his eyebrows in what seemed like an eerily familiar expression.

"Well, this is odd. Harry, you look about sixteen," the Hufflepuff boy stated though Sirius noticed that he had grabbed his wand off the nightstand and tucked in serenely into the sleeve of his pajamas.

"I am sixteen!" the other boy, presumably named Harry, yelped. "Now who are you!" The James look-a-like had grabbed his wand also though he wasn't concealing it at all. He seemed far more ready to fight than turquoise hair. Sirius noted, with a start, that turquoise hair had almost the exact same eyes as Sirius's.

"My name is Teddy Lupin," he replied calmly. Sirius stared at the boy. That was where he'd seen the expression before, on Remus. But Remus had never said anything about being related to someone with turquoise colored hair.

"I've never heard of you," Harry said. Sirius wished he could argue that he'd certainly never heard of Harry either and James told Sirius about everything. Sirius was quite sure Harry was related to James; other than the eyes, he looked identical to a tee.

"Of course you haven't. You're what, seventeen years older than I am?" Teddy replied. "Nearly eighteen, I believe. If you're sixteen than I certainly don't exist yet to you." Teddy shook his head. "This really is a strange dream, you know. Perhaps I shouldn't work on my Transfiguration homework late at night, should I? Or maybe it was something I ate."

"Wait, wait, are you saying you're related to Remus Lupin?" Harry asked. Sirius wanted to thank him, but of course he was frozen and invisible so that wasn't really possible.

"My father, yes," Teddy replied, grinning in a way that was very reminiscent of Remus.

"And your born a year from now?"

"That depends. How far into your sixth year are you?"

"It's almost Christmas."

"No then. My mum's just pregnant a year from your time. Seriously, what did I eat before bed?" Teddy seemed off in his own world, trying to remember.

"I didn't even know Lupin was, you know, involved with anyone," Harry replied, seeming a bit disoriented. "I guess I never really thought of him, you know, fancying anyone." Teddy seemed to find this amusing. He grinned.

"Hermione told me you had absolutely no idea what was going on with my mother that year but I just figured she was being Hermione and saying you and Ron had no idea about girls whatsoever at any point in your lives," Teddy laughed.

"You know Ron and Hermione?" Harry asked. Sirius thought he would very much like to know who Ron and Hermione were.

"Yes," Teddy agreed. "And Ginny," he added with a smirk. A flash of both curiosity and embarrassment came to Harry's face but it was gone a moment later. "Do you know when this dream is over because I would very much like to wake up and finish my Transfiguration homework?" Teddy questioned

"McGonagall?" Harry asked, as if trying to bring this conversation back to normal. Teddy, however, seemed to be taking a good deal of amusement in confusing Harry.

"No, she retired years ago. Actually about a year before I started school. She never did embrace the whole headmistress thing though. She was quite glad to hire someone new after the Carrows and Snape left."

"Dumbledore's headmaster."

"Not anymore," Teddy informed him, some of the amusement gone from his face. "What's he like anyway?"

"He's Dumbledore," Harry explained, seeming as flabbergasted by the question as Sirius would have been. How did one describe Dumbledore?

"Very helpful," Teddy decided. "I hope you don't mind if I _don't_ quote you in any History of Magic essays anytime soon."

"Who on earth is your mother?" Harry asked, apparently going back to his amazement at Remus fancying someone.

"Nymphadora Tonks," Teddy answered, and promptly scrunched up his nose and changed his hair from turquoise to a very vibrant shade of pink. He then changed it back. Sirius was infuriated. Remus had a son with Nymphadora? Nymphadora the little girl he had only recently met, his cousin Andromeda's daughter. She was what, five, and Remus was sixteen!

"Oh," Harry agreed. Then he looked up again. "Then why has she been sulking? He's still alive."

"In your time," Teddy said a bit bitterly, the last of the amusement dying from his face, and then shook his head. "I really need to get out of this dream."

"Lupin dies?" Harry asked sadly. Teddy nodded.

"They both do, when I was a baby, in the final battle."

"Oh," Harry said. "I'm sorry." Teddy shrugged, not really with indifference but with a lack of knowing what to say.

"You're in the same boat, aren't you? I just don't have to deal with people gawking at my forehead and my name." Harry nodded. Sirius wondered why people were gawking at Harry. "You name your son James by the way," Teddy informed him. "Your first son anyway. And later you have a daughter named Lily."

"So I do live?" Harry asked, seeming excited by this fact. Sirius was beginning to feel very depressed. Both Remus and James were dead? So what, that left Sirius and Peter all alone together. And here Harry seemed surprised that he lived!

"Yes. You're my godfather actually. Though I live with my grandmother most of the time. And Molly Weasley has appointed herself my honorary grandmother. You know how she is." Harry nodded. Sirius tried to figure out who Molly Weasley was and if he'd every heard the name before. Weasley sounded vaguely familiar.

The two boys fell into silence for a moment before Harry looked back up at him. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Teddy turned back to his assignment and began shuffling the papers together.

"So seriously, Tonks loves Lupin?" Harry asked suddenly. "That's why she's been moping about?" Teddy chuckled and turned back to Harry.

"Yes. He broke things off with her before he went to go spy on Greyback's pack. They get back together later in the year."

"I was sure it was Sirius," Harry confided. Sirius perked up at the mention of his name.

"Yeah, you've mentioned that once," Teddy agreed. "And Ginny apparently thought my mum was in love with Bill and upset because he had gotten engaged. Funny how different reality can be, isn't it?" Teddy asked and rolled his eyes.

"So Ginny's all right too?" Harry asked, looking away.

"You and Ginny get married and have three kids. One of whom has been trying to set me up with Bill's oldest daughter since she could talk. Now that would certainly make Ginny's theory awkward."

"This is weird," Harry confessed. "You're talking about my kids like they exist."

"Oh, I love them," Teddy laughed. "I feel bad for Al though. James teases him constantly."

"I have kids who have siblings," Harry added. "I don't even have siblings."

"Neither do I," Teddy agreed. "But I'm sixteen, I'm hardly about to start a family."

"I'm sixteen!"

"No, to me you're thirty-four." The conversation paused again and then Harry opened his mouth.

"Did I give you the map?" Teddy nodded, rather proudly.

"Of course. We're the only ones left of the Marauders after all."

* * *

"But she's five!" Sirius yelled, sitting up in his sleep.

"Sirius, go back to sleep!" James yelped.

"It's five in the morning!" Peter argued. Sirius however had dashed out of bed and was shaking Remus awake.

"You can't sleep with her, she's like five!" Sirius yelled at him. Davey and Simon, the two other boys in the dormitory blissfully slept on. They had long ago started putting a silencing charm around their beds before they went to sleep rather than be awoken by their four roommates every other night.

"I'm not sleeping with anybody!" Remus yelped. "Get out of my bed!"

"Sirius, what the heck?" James asked, grabbing him and pulling him off Remus's bed as Remus fell off the other end.

"But he does! It's the boy with turquoise hair and his name is Teddy and he and- and you have Harry!" Sirius said, turning around to face James.

"Harry who?" James questioned as Peter came over. Remus was slowly getting to his feet.

"Harry your son who looks just like you except the eyes which have got to belong to Evans because he names his daughter Lily, that is according to Teddy, and you can't sleep with her by the way!" Sirius yelped, turning around to face Remus again.

"All right, I won't sleep with James's son's daughter?" Remus said, seeming utterly perplexed.

"No, Andromeda's daughter!"

"I wasn't planning on it," Remus told him.

"And you don't get to spawn if Peter and I don't!" Sirius yelled at James, though he intended Remus to take heed too.

"What is wrong with you?" James questioned.

"Peter's a rat and I'm a dog. We get to have more. It can't just be you two. Who ever heard of a deer and a werewolf out-producing a rat and a dog? It's just nuts."

"What?" Peter asked.

"I think it has more to do with the girl than the guy," Remus grumbled. "So nuts would have very little to do with it." Sirius ignored him as James snorted.

"He has a son," Sirius said to Peter, pointing at James. "And then, you know, like seventeen years later, he has a son," he said, now shoving a finger in Remus's direction. "But you and me," he wagged his finger between him and Peter. "No sons. No daughters. Nothing. We're just dead."

"I didn't really want to have kids with you," Peter replied. "Sorry. I'm not gay."

"That's not what I meant!" Sirius yelled and then stormed off to his own bed, plopping down facedown on the pillow, leaving Remus, James, and Peter to stand there, completely confused.

"I'm not a pedophile," Remus finally said still seeming half-asleep.

"I know," James assured him.

"Can I go back to bed then?"

**All right, all right, I apologize. I do actually like Remus/Tonks a lot but I suppose this fic comes off rather against it (I actually think Sirius would have been for Remus and Tonks getting together in book 5 but at sixteen his only memory of Tonks is of a girl who's still five so his perception is quite different). I also apologize for the absolute complete randomness of this fic. Reviews always welcome. I'll go die of shame now.**


	6. Two at Once

**Title: **Two at Once

**Disclaimer: **So, yes, I indeed do own, um, nothing. Sorry. Not J.K.R.

**Universe: **Canon

**Time: **About four years after the final battle.

**Characters: **Percy, Audrey (Percy's wife, written as a muggle), Molly, Arthur, Ginny

**Ships: **Percy/Audrey. Possibly a little Arthur/Molly.

**Genre:** Family, I suppose. Minor drama.

**Summary: **Percy had always been the planner. But there are some things that just never go according to plan.

"Twins, Percy. We're having twins." Percy nodded as though he understood, as though his wife Audrey wasn't talking gibberish. Audrey handed him the strange black and white photo and then walked around the couch, dropping down in an angry huff. She whined lightly and laid down her head in his lap, staring up at the ceiling, her knees bent so that her feet wouldn't dangle off the end of the couch. "I had it all planned out, you know. I was going to finish school and finish my practical training before I got married. I was going to get married to a guy who loved me with a good family but a career completely different from mine so there'd never be a conflict of interest. That all went perfectly well, according to plan with the benefit of the guy being you which is better than I could have imagined.

"And then, you know, I figured I'd have a kid when I was twenty-six. I'll still be twenty-five. But oh well. You know your job and my job are more settled than I thought they'd be but this-" she flipped her hand backwards toward the picture in Percy's hands, hitting Percy's nose in the process. "Sorry," she said, moving her legs down and her torso up so that she was sitting next to him.

"It's all right," Percy replied distantly, readjusting his glasses as she snuggled up against his side, curling her legs up on the couch next to her. He shifted the picture to his left hand and put his right arm around Audrey's shoulders, still staring at the picture. She leaned her head against him.

"My mother's going to laugh at me," she said and Percy heard her sniff. "She always laughed, said I couldn't just plan life like that." Percy finally set the picture down though he still held it tight in his fingers, his arm resting on the couch arm. He looked over at his wife and saw tears running down her face.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, tilting his body to see her better.

"Because I'm pregnant with twins!" she yelped, the tears now streaming down her cheeks. "I'm full of more hormones than a bloody dairy cow!" She turned into Percy, burying her face in his shirt. Percy moved to put his arms around her, the picture drifting down as it became forgotten and slipped from Percy's hand.

Audrey started to drift off eventually and mechanically Percy half woke her to lead her to the bed. She lay down on her side, curled up and quiet. Percy sat down quietly on the bed next to her, his fingers running through her hair. "We can do this, right?" she whispered. Percy tried to say yes but it stuck in his throat. He heard Audrey's breathing become softer and more even; she was sound asleep even without his reassurance.

Percy found himself utterly un-tired and quietly slipped away from his wife, walking back into the living room where he picked up the picture lying on the ground. There were two bodies, two very human looking bodies. He swallowed hard, the word playing in his mind: twins. He wasn't supposed to have twins. It was supposed to be Bill who actually had a clue what he was doing or George who had been a twin or- Percy stopped thinking there, knowing the next name was Fred. Fred was supposed to have twins, not Percy. Biting his lip, Percy walked briskly over to the phone Audrey used and wrote "Burrow" on the notepad in case she awoke. He disapparated before he could even fully say why.

There was still a light on in the kitchen and Percy took off toward it, the picture still in hand. He knocked on the backdoor before just opening it and coming into the room. Ginny smiled at him from where she was sitting at the kitchen table. "Hey Percy," she greeted brightly, as their mother looked up at him from where she was sitting by Ginny. Their father glanced over at him from over by the stove where he was pouring himself a cup of tea with the steaming kettle. "Want to help with wedding plans?"

"No, not right- Maybe late- Sorry," he replied, unable to get out a full sentence.

"Is everything all right?" his father asked, walking back toward the table.

"Yes," Percy stumbled as he felt three worried pairs of eyes on him. "It's just- she found out- it's-"

"Percy," his mother said, trying to calm him. Ginny pulled out a chair for him to sit and he promptly walked into it and would have fallen if his father hadn't grabbed his shoulders to steady him. Percy met his father's eyes for a moment and then shoved the picture into his hand.

"It's twins. The baby. It's, well, not _a_ baby. It's- They use sound," he babbled, gesturing to try and make his point, "something about sound being like ocean waves and-"

"Percy, sit down," Ginny told him, pulling him down as their mother walked around to peer at the picture with their father. Percy sat there, still feeling like his head wasn't on straight.

"It's twins," his mother said, smiling to herself. Ginny got up and looked at the picture too, slipping between Percy and their father.

"Is that really from inside Audrey?" Ginny asked. Percy nodded. "That's so cool," Ginny grinned. "Look-it, Mum, they've already got hands and feet and everything."

"Fingers and toes," their mother added in a voice that suggested she was near tearing up. "Maybe these muggles do have something, don't they?"

"They're twins!" Percy said, standing straight up again. "There's- there's two of them! Two. I don't even think I can handle one," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Ginny looked amused. "I mean what if they're boys? I'm not good at that Quidditch playing, roughhousing stuff. Or- or what if they're _girls_? I don't know a thing about girls! I've never even been one!" Ginny laughed and he ignored her. "Or what-if it's one of both and I fail with both genders instead of just one and-"

"Percy, breathe," his father instructed.

"I'm going to be a horrid father," he snuffed. "And now I'm going to mess up two kids instead of one." Ginny slipped forward and put her arms around him.

"No you won't idiot," she said quietly before pulling back and smiling softly at him. "You'll be fine. And if not, you could always give them to Angelina and George." Percy looked at her blankly. "Kidding," she said. "You'll be great." She turned around toward their parents. "I'll leave him to you. Good-night Percy. Congratulations."

"Thanks," he mumbled in response as she slid passed him and out of the room.

"Percy, you'll figure it out," his father told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "If you thought you had any idea about what's coming, I'd find it hard not to laugh. It'll come to you, the father thing and no one can tell you how. You don't know what kids you're going to get. But you'll do fine."

"But there's two of them," He remind his father. "Two at once."

"This is what twins means," his father agreed.

"I'm being serious!"

"Percy, we're not saying it's easy," his mother said. "But you'll figure it out. You'll get through it. You'll love them more than you know."

"That's it for advice?"

"Yes," his father nodded.

"Nothing more practical?" he asked, still worried but beginning to feel sane again.

"Try and get as much sleep as possible now because you aren't getting a full nights sleep again for years," his father told him with a smile.

"How many years?" Percy asked, looking at his parents.

"I'll tell you when we know. Bill keeps asking us too."

**For some reason, I see Molly and Lucy as being identical twins. Which naturally led to a freak-out by Percy because Percy plus twins doesn't combine very well. And yes, I know identical twins are in no way genetic and therefore it is completely by chance that Percy had twin brothers and then had twin daughters.  
**

**Random question I came up with while editing: why is gibberish spelled "gibberish" instead of "jibberish"? It looks so much more gibberish-y when it's spelled with a "j". Right, I'm insane. You hadn't figured this out?**

**P.S. My friend with the penname Emiliana Keladry just posted her first Harry Potter story, a Snape inner monologue mostly, called What is Done. So yeah, just, you know, throwing it out there if you need something to read that's a little more angsty…**


	7. Crying Over a Split Bag

**Title: **Crying Over Spilt Ink

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine, it's JKR/Warner Brothers.

**Universe: **Canon

**Time: **During Harry's third year.

**Characters: **Ginny, Remus, mentions of McGonagall, Lockhart, and George

**Ships: **None.

**Genre:** Hurt/Comfort maybe.

**Summary: **It's not just a spilt bag at the end of Defense Against the Dark Arts, it's the split bag on top of everything else. It's Ginny's second year and remembering her first year is proving to be easier said than done.

Everything spilled to the ground with a loud crashing noise. Her books became splayed, one of them losing its weakly attached cover leaving the title page open for all to see and the pages of another went soaring under the teacher's desk. Papers fluttered about like the bubbles from a bath grown out of control and her ink bottle broke as it crashed to the ground, staining everything. And Ginny Weasley, trying as hard as she could to fight it, began to cry. It wasn't a pretty cry. She could feel her nose beginning to run and her sobs were choked and hoarse as she tried to stop them from leaving her throat. It was just a ripped bag, just a stupid ribbed bag. She was sure one of her brother's could fix it for her but of course it was a ripped bag on top of everything else. "Ginny," someone said lightly and she tried to fight through her tearing eyes to see him. She felt a comforting hand rest on her shoulder and she blinked to see a handkerchief held in front of her. "It's all right. We can get it cleaned up no problem. And it's the end of the day. You won't be late for your next class," he told her. She tried to stop crying again as she saw Professor Lupin get back to his feet and begin cleaning her books and papers of the ink on them.

"I'm such a baby," she managed to get out, wiping away her tears with the side of her arm. She blew her nose into the handkerchief. Professor Lupin looked up at her, his eyes seeming kind.

"Why would you think that?"

"Because I'm crying about a stupid spilt bag!" she reminded him as she reached down and jammed one of her books into her book bag. It went right through the rip again and she felt tears welling back into her eyes. He reached out and took her bag, using his wand to fix the rip and handed it back to her.

"About the bag or about your school work?" he asked quietly, handing her a stack of papers he had removed the excess ink from. Ginny looked down at the ground.

"I'm- I'm trying so hard but I can't remember most of last year," she said, the tears starting to flow down her cheeks again. "And- and I'm t-tired of my brothers asking me if I'm all right and I want to be by myself even just a walk but I can't even go down to Hagrid's and- and- I just-"

"It's all right, Ginny."

"No it's not! It's my own fault! I was a monster," she cried. "And now I'm going to flunk out and Mum and Dad will be so ashamed but I c-can't keep up and it's all because I was so stupid and I shouldn't even deserve to-"

"Ginny," he interrupted, his voice kind but firm. "It was a mistake. You didn't mean to do anything."

"You know what happened?" she asked, if anything feeling more ashamed. He was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, the first good one in a long time according to Fred and George, and _he_ knew what she had done last year.

He nodded. "I was told at the beginning of the school year because the teachers mentioned you might be behind, or at least until McGonagall pointed out that your class hadn't learned much last year except how many shampoos Gilderoy Lockhart advertises for." He smiled, not a Gilderoy Lockhart sort of smile but a comforting sort of smile, one that made her feel like things really could be all right. "There are so many people who have fallen for Voldemort's charms in less deceiving ways Ginny. You have nothing to feel guilty about anymore, do you understand?" he asked, searching her eyes. "You were an eleven-year-old witch dealing with a direct form of communication. He's managed to deceive grown witches and wizards who never even shared a word with him." She nodded. She'd heard this before. He gave her a sad sort of smile that seemed to mean he knew she didn't believe him.

"No one was seriously hurt Ginny. Everyone is fine now. And you weren't a monster. There's a huge difference between being possessed and being a monster. You wouldn't blame someone for what they did if they were under the Imperious Curse would you?" She shook her head. "Well, from what I understand you were under something even deeper than the Imperious Curse. The Imperious Curse attacks the mind. The diary attacked your soul. And look at you. You've survived that still intact, still feeling, still you. You're a very strong person Ginny."

"Then why am I crying over a split backpack?" she asked, looking down at the mess in front of her again, tear tracks drying on her cheeks.

"Because you're trying to learn two years of magic at once while at the same time trying to find friends when it seems like everyone else has already paired off, correct?" Slowly she nodded as he tapped his wand against her book where the cover had fallen off and handed it over to her. "Add to that, most people who you do try and talk to ask you about the Chamber because they know you got dragged down there and they don't know why or how you got rescued and that brings back bad memories every time." Ginny nodded again as he handed back the book whose pages had flown across the room.

"And you're not going to flunk out. You're a very smart girl Ginny. Your marks in this class are brilliant and this is the one class where you're even with all your peers. Once you catch up you're going to be just fine."

"But I might never catch up," she told him dismally.

"You'll catch up Ginny," he told her, handing over her backpack. "Although, I'm afraid I can't excuse you from your homework due Wednesday." She smiled very lightly. "I have a meeting I have to go to but you're welcome to stay in here as long as you like."

"Thank you," she told him quietly.

"You're welcome," he answered before giving her another smile that reminded her a bit of her father and then walked out of the classroom. Ginny stuck around until she was fairly sure her eyes were no longer red and puffy.

At the end of class on Wednesday, Professor Lupin asked to talk to her and shyly she walked forward, not sure quite what this was about. She finished packing up her bag as he spoke with another student about the homework assignment before going up to the front of the classroom. He smiled at her. "Nothing to be afraid of Ginny," he told her. "I just spoke with Professor McGonagall yesterday and she asked me to relay a message."

"Oh," she answered, shifting her bag on her back.

"There's a girl in Professor McGonagall's seventh year class, a Ravenclaw, who's willing to help you catch up in Transfiguration. She's very quiet, won't ask any questions of you and she's fairly good at Transfiguration. If you wanted, I could tutor you in Charms until you've caught up. If you need help in Potions I believe I've heard your brother George is surprisingly good at potionmaking. You might want to ask him." Ginny stared at him wide eyed for a moment.

"Really?" she asked faintly after a moment.

"Yes, well you know your brother's-"

"No, I know that about George," she cut him off and then blushed a little. "I mean," she stumbled on, "you'll help me?" He nodded and she grinned widely before hugging him without thinking. He seemed so startled by the movement and gently put his hand on her shoulder before she pulled away. "Thank you," she said happily.

He smiled at her warmly. "You're welcome, Ginny."

**Yes random. Yes odd. Felt like needed to post something. School started (a couple weeks ago actually) and actually have things I need to get done now (kinda sucks). I tired. Woke up at two and couldn't get back to sleep till three plus had 8 am and roommate's alarm mysteriously went off at 6. Review to tell me what you think of story? Please?**


	8. Black Eyes of Grey

**Title: **Black Eyes of Grey

**Disclaimer: **It's not mine. Just assume that if you know it, it's not mine.

**Universe: **Canon

**Time: **Spans from Draco's birth to just after the final battle.

**Characters: **Narcissa, Draco, Lucius, Bellatrix, mentions of Andromeda, Sirius, and Regulus

**Ships: **Very slight Narcissa/Lucius I suppose

**Genre:** Family Drama maybe?

**Summary: **Narcissa finds herself fear what she might see in her son's eyes.

Narcissa Malfoy had never wanted to have a son. It wasn't that she would have preferred a daughter; it was that she had never wanted a child. But she had wanted to do what was expected of her, to be the "normal" one of her family. She'd allowed herself to get pregnant, she'd had a son, and despite her best intentions, she fell in love with him the second she held him. He was innocent and naïve, something Narcissa couldn't remember being. If she had, it was part of a life she tried daily to forget, long before the war.

Bellatrix came to see him a day after he was born and Narcissa had refused to let her sister hold him. "You're being irrational," Lucius had told her, a slight grin on his face. But Narcissa shook her head. Bellatrix had laughed.

"All the more reason to not get pregnant," she'd snorted, seemingly uncaring. Her eyes watched the baby with interest for only a moment before turning her attention elsewhere. Narcissa looked down at Draco in her arms and forced herself not to cry.

Everyone who saw him after his eyes had reached their final color claimed that he had Lucius's eyes. Narcissa knew better. The eyes hadn't come from Lucius; they had come from her. Sure her eyes were blue but his eyes were the grey eyes of the Black family. And she had taken to watching them everyday, searching for a look that would tell her what was going to happen to him. Would she see the stubborn, angry glint that had come into the eyes of the fighters, into the eyes of Bellatrix and Sirius or the nervous, closed look that came to Regulus's eyes in his final years? Would she some day find herself looking at her son and see logic and emotions visibly combating each other, the eyes she hadn't seen since Andromeda had left years ago? She couldn't decide which she would prefer; she wished there were a way to keep him as a toddler, to keep him innocent and naïve, but of course, there wasn't.

He disappeared one day just after his fifth year. Narcissa searched the house for him, allowing a few tears to fall in the empty house as her mind processed just where he probably was. Losing Lucius was hard. She couldn't say she was fully in love with him but he was her companion, her friend, and he was gone. But Draco was her baby, her innocent boy and she knew where he had probably gone, and who had probably taken him there. She hadn't let Bella hold her baby for a reason. She had already broken Regulus; Narcissa hadn't wanted her to break Draco. But he came back with a glint of the same fire that had been in Bella's eyes for as long as Narcissa dared to remember. Dumbledore, he told her, that was his mission. To kill Dumbledore. Narcissa stared at him for a moment and then darted into her room, beginning for the first time in years to fully cry.

It faded so fast. Her heart pounded when she looked at him and saw him fighting to think of a plan. He acted tough, fought at every turn but his eyes were betraying him. He'd slid from Bellatrix to Andromeda in an instant. Fear played clearly in his eyes along with his thinking pattern. And Narcissa wasn't the only one to notice. Bellatrix noticed too. She taught Draco Legumency and while Narcissa tried to believe her older sister was doing so for her son's protection, she got the feeling it was really so Bellatrix didn't have to look at her nephew and see the sister that she was still trying to hate. He became Regulus, nervous and trying desperately to close down. Narcissa cried again, the second time in a year, because she knew what had happened to Regulus or at least the important part; Regulus had died when he was the most afraid and the least willing to talk.

And yet they fought through the year and got through another and Draco was still there, still alive. She stood there with her family, her husband and her son as they were subjected to a search of the house at the end of the war by two wizards from Magical Law Enforcement, a woman and her partner. The woman looked at Draco and then back at Narcissa. "He really has your eyes, doesn't he?" she asked. Lucius glared at her.

"His eyes are grey. Hers are blue," he stated but Narcissa didn't say anything. Because that was what Draco looked like now. He didn't look like Bellatrix or Andromeda, Sirius or Regulus. He looked like her, cold and broken. And she realized that was what she had never wanted him to be. For the first time since Andromeda had left, Narcissa cried when she wasn't alone.

**Very short little fic-let type thing. Had it on my computer for a while but just last night got into a discussion with a friend about how Draco is really a lot more like his mother though he tries to be like his father (and his mother would prefer him to be like his father too). Anyway, found this then in the morning and decided to post. Hope you like it!**


	9. Midnight Encounter

**Title: **Midnight Encounter

**Disclaimer: **If I say it's mine, would anyone belief me? No. If I say it's not mine would I be telling the truth? Yes.

**Universe: **Canon

**Time: **First part is sometime during the beginning of OotP and the second part is at the beginning of the seven Harry's battle.

**Characters: **Ron, Tonks, some Remus, with lots of mentionings. Also has puppy slippers.

**Ships: **A bit of Remus/Tonks and possibly a little awkward, one-sided crush Ron/Tonks

**Genre:** Humor? I'm horrid at genres

**Summary: **Ron runs into someone who normally sports bright pink hair and, well, clothes, as he runs to the toilet late at night

Hermione was standing at the prow of a ship, her right hand shielding her eyes as she scanned off into the horizon. She was wearing a surprisingly short skirt for Hermione and an overlarge orange sweater with a pair of slippers shaped like puppies. They barked like small, yippy dogs when Hermione moved her feet at all. Harry was sitting on the deck translating an elaborate conversation with a whale for George who was standing nearby in a long white coat with black glasses and a clipboard. There were two Freds, literally two Freds not just another Fred and George, dangling Percy over the edge of the boat. And Ron was standing near Hermione and her barking slippers that Luna had just appeared and declared astounding before evaporating in the wind. The waves were crashing against the edge of the boat higher and higher but Hermione wouldn't move because her shoes would be mad and she didn't want to upset them.

"Move!" Ron said, his voice half in a whine. She was going to get all wet and Hermione couldn't swim, or at least, she had suddenly forgotten. The water splashed against him, feeling highly cold as it went over his head. "Please Hermione." It crashed against him again. "If you don't, your puppies will drown!" Ron attempted knowing Hermione wouldn't move for herself but she might for her puppies. The water leered forward and Ron knew he was going to get hit hard by the wave. He winced hard, bracing for impact and suddenly woke up from his dream with a bladder so full he could hardly move. As fast as he could, Ron rolled out of bed, barely sparing a glance across the room over at Harry who was sounds asleep and ran to the bathroom, pulling the door open as rapidly as he could. And then suddenly, he didn't have to go anymore.

There was a naked woman standing in the bathroom, sopping wet, water dripping from her hair turned dark brown by the water caught in the strands straight on to the "twins" normally kept covered by clothes. His eyes travelled downward, despite some small voice in his head telling him he shouldn't, down past her belly button and hips and-

"Ron!" she hissed, reaching backwards for a towel, nearly tripping, but still managing to grab it and throw it around her body.

"Sorry," he said quickly, his face turning bright red. "Sorry, I just had to- I'm going to go now," he blubbered and then ran out of the bathroom and back into his bedroom, collapsing on the bed with the image of a very naked Tonks still swimming in his mind. And then, he realized that he still really, really had to pee. He groaned into his pillow, burying his face in it as Harry continued to sleep blissfully onward.

Ron rolled over on to his back, trying to ignore his bladder for a few more minutes until he was sure Tonks was long gone from the bathroom. Why had he been the one to walk in on her, he thought to himself. Ron was the only one of his siblings who'd managed to never walk in on his parents doing anything he didn't want to see. Hermione was a girl; it wouldn't have been as bad. And Harry was, well, Harry Potter. Sirius was her cousin and Remus was, well at least he would probably have the sense not to check her out in the middle of the bathroom. And how long exactly did he have before she told? She was friends with his mother and his sister and Hermione, the three worst people who could ever be told he had seen a naked woman.

He was dead, he decided. Dead as could be. He ought to be running away right now and at least once he was outside, he could pee freely. But he didn't run. He stayed where he was until he was sure he had heard footsteps passing by and then hurried toward the bathroom, finding it thankfully completely empty.

* * *

It had taken a while, but he had learned to look her in the face again and from what he could tell, she hadn't told his mother or Ginny or, most thankfully of all, Hermione what had happened. And a couple of years had passed from the summer he was fifteen to the summer he was seventeen. She had gone from the wet creature who had kept invading his dreams to the Moaning Mrytle impersonator to the happy woman with bubble gum pink hair who had married a werewolf. All was well until those six words. "Which leaves you and me, Ron."

On a broomstick with Tonks who looked a lot more like the woman he had run into in the bathroom than she had last year. The image flashed into his mind again and he shut his eyes, trying to force it away. Very, very lowly, almost so much so that he was almost sure he had imagined it, Ron heard a growl that sent chills down his spine. He glanced up to see Remus looking surprised he had made such a noise and Tonks shaking with silent giggles, both unnoticed by anyone else as they were all paying attention to Harry and Hagrid. And that was when Ron realized it. Tonks hadn't told any of her girlfriends. But she had told the man who was now her husband. And for the first time since the end of his third year, Ron was terrified of Remus Lupin.

"Hold tight, now, Ron."

**So, not all mine, obviously. I mean, even for fanfic not all mine. Two of the dialogue lines are directly from the seventh book (just putting a different spin on that scene that Harry didn't know about because Ron would NEVER tell him he walked in on a nude Tonks). Add to that, that I was having a discussion with a friend last night about the Ron-Tonks relationship (not romantic, just as friends/acquaintances) and the possibility that he had walked in on a) her and Lupin and b) just her, completely naked. Both possibilities seemed to fit but this is the one I wrote.**


	10. Teach Me

**Title: **Teach Me

**Disclaimer: **Check the epilogue of Deathly Hallows. Yeah, characters not mine.

**Universe: **Canon

**Time: **Four years after the epilogue.

**Characters: **Louis, Fred (the 2nd), James (the 2nd), Albus, and Hugo. Mentions of other Weasley cousins.

**Ships: **Hugo/OC

**Genre:** Really should remove this category. Let's go with Mystery and Humor.

**Summary: **How is it that Ron's son, Uncle Ron's son, is sitting at a library table with four girls and none of them wanting to kill him while all his male cousins sit together without anyone of the fairer sex?

"That's just disgusting," Louis muttered, his voice bordering on complete amazement. James nodded in agreement without really thinking as he looked across the common room.

"We should disown him," Fred added. James nodded again.

"I don't think they would take kindly to that," Albus remarked staring at the girls. "I think they would tend to sympathize with him rather than us." Fred growled lightly in acknowledgement. He was lounging across two chairs on one side of the table in the library with Louis next to him. Albus was on the left end of the table and James was on the right. A few yards away, their cousin Hugo, at only thirteen, was surrounded by girls while the four of them sat utterly alone. The worst part was that absolutely none of the girls around Hugo were related to him; he was the only redhead in the bunch. There was no flash of Roxanne's red-tinted braids or Lily's orange flames or Rose's thick auburn ponytail.

"Fine, we won't disown him," Fred agreed.

"He still makes me sick though," Louis sighed. James and Albus both nodded as Hugo laughed lightly and put his arm around the girl on his left. She smiled at him.

"How does he do that?" James asked. "If I tried that, I'd get slapped."

"And none of the rest of them look mad at him in the slightest," Albus grumbled.

"He's such a nerd!" Louis groaned, glaring over at his table. "Why do they like him anyway? He's not particularly handsome."

"Or funny," Fred added.

"Or good at Quidditch," Albus added, studying the table with great concentration.

"Maybe he's using a potion," James suggested.

"On all four of them?" Fred asked pointedly as the girl on Hugo's right used her finger to wipe a smudge of ink off of Hugo's nose.

"Yeah, maybe not," James sighed, seeming to deflate completely as he pillowed his head in his folded arms, his face still turned to the side so he could watch Hugo. Fred shook his head again.

"Maybe he can give us some advice," Albus said. "I mean that girl on his left, she's in my year, a Ravenclaw."

"She's pretty," Louis consented.

"Smart too," Albus told him.

"Stupid Hugo," James growled. Louis and Albus nodded furiously. They turned back as one of the girls pushed her fingers through Hugo's hair, messing up his curls before she and the girl from Albus's year started walking toward the door out of the library. Another of the girls grinned at Hugo, said something to the one other girl left, a girl with wavy brown hair, and picked up her things to leave as well. Hugo and the brunette girl began packing up their books. She kept tucking her hair behind her ears as she spoke to him. Hugo said something back to her and she responded enthusiastically before hugging him. She pulled away sharply and blushed before saying good-bye and hurrying out of the library.

"I think he just asked her out," Fred said in astonishment.

"He's got courage," Louis replied. "I couldn't get myself to ask a girl out until I was fourteen at least. Hugo just turned thirteen in August."

"Maybe that's how he got into Gryffindor," Albus sighed. James looked up to see Hugo walking toward them.

"Hi there!" he said brightly. Fred, Louis, and James stared at him.

"Uh, hi, Hugo," Albus shuffled. Hugo frowned.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. Fred shook his head.

"How could everything be okay," he began, "when you're thirteen and had four girls while Louis and I are seventeen and have none?"

"What four girls?" Hugo asked, seeming genuinely naïve. "I don't remember ever having four girls."

"What about those four girls?" Fred asked in exasperation.

"Oh," Hugo said, his eyes widening as he got the idea. He seemed to find it amusing. "Emma's tutoring Martha and Vanessa in Transfiguration," Hugo explained. "Her friend Jessy just came along."

"Well, what do you need help in Transfiguration for?" Albus huffed. "You do fine."

"Yeah, you're like, super-nerd in every subject," Louis added. Hugo frowned again.

"Super-nerd?" he asked.

"You are," Fred insisted. "So why did you need help?"

"I didn't really. I just- I rather fancy Martha," Hugo explained, his cheeks turning pink. "So I said I'd try and help her too if she wanted. It gives me a chance to study anyway."

"They were all flirting with you!" Fred told him.

"No they weren't," Hugo laughed. "Emma and Jessy just think I'm a cute kid and Vanessa only likes me as a friend."

"But they- but- Hugo!" James sputtered. "You had four girls!" Hugo rolled his eyes and grinned at his cousins as if they were idiotic.

"I demand you tell them what you're up to! You're using them," Louis said boldly.

"I already did tell them," Hugo replied, seeming somewhat offended. "I confessed to Jessy and Emma up front. They thought it was cute. Vanessa asked me if I fancied Martha when I asked her about Martha. She told me Martha fancied me too. And I just told Martha now before I asked her to go to Hogsmeade with me that I asked for help with Transfiguration so that I could get up the courage to ask her out."

"Why would you tell her _that_?" Fred asked incredulously.

"She thought it was sweet," Hugo shrugged. "Worked out well if you ask me."

"Why would you ask Vanessa anyway?" James questioned. "She was bound to tell Martha you asked about her."

"So?" Hugo asked. "If I asked Vanessa, I would know straight out whether I was going to be rejected or not. Girls tell their girlfriends everything. They _always_ know who their friends fancy." Hugo's grin fell as he felt four pairs of eyes focused on him. "Are you all right?" he asked them nervously. His eyes moved between all four of his cousins. Fred had straightened up and was now only taking up one chair. James's head was no longer in his hands. "Are you?" he questioned worriedly.

"Hugo," Fred started carefully. "I don't think your dad is your dad. But as he's taken you in, I'm begging you, as your adoptive cousin, please teach me."

"Huh?"

**Thank you for reading. Good night (/morning/evening/afternoon)!**


	11. Keep Your Friends Close

**Title: **Keep Your Friends Close

**Disclaimer: **No, it has not magically become mine

**Universe: **Canon

**Time: **Sometime during the winter of Harry's fifth year.

**Characters: **Tonks, Remus, Sirius

**Ships: **None really. All friendship and one enemy.

**Genre:** Humor and weather hatred.

**Summary: **Tonks stalks her mortal enemy.

Remus Lupin was reading and walking at the same time, again. He was balancing a book in his left hand and his right hand was on the edge of the page, ready to turn when his eyes slid over the last paragraph. The page slid between his right thumb and forefinger when he spotted another occupant in one of the front rooms at Grimmauld Place. Quickly he lost his train of thought and stared at the woman kneeling by the window and glaring outside. Cautiously, he placed his book down on the table and walked over towards the window. "What are you-"

"Shh!" she hissed, reaching up and grabbing his shirt to pull him down. Nearly losing his balance, he bent down next to her. Then she went back to angrily staring out the window. Remus watched her dark eyes darting back and forth, tracking the patterns of the snow that was falling down, barely visible against the dark night except where it crossed the path of a street light.

"What's-"

"Shh!" she insisted again. Remus stared at her uncertainly for a moment before slowly beginning to rise to his feet. She grabbed his shirt again and tugged him down. "What do you think you're doing? It will see you!"

"What will?" he asked her.

"That!" she said, pointing outside at the window.

"I don't see anything."

"Look at the street light."

"All I see is snow," he told her.

"That's what it wants you to think."

"How much time have you been spending around Moody lately?"

"You don't smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"It's not snow."

"You can smell snow?"

"No of course not," she replied, looking at him strangely.

"Then-"

"I can smell freezing rain."

"Oh," he replied not sure quite what to say to that. He looked out the window again, now studying the shower beneath the light closer. It was indeed freezing rain and not snow. He glanced back at Tonks again. She had changed her hair from its usual pink to a faint brown that blended in with the room behind her. "Is there a reason why you're watching it so intently?"

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," she muttered, not tearing her eyes away from the window.

"Freezing rain is your enemy?" She turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Do you know me?"

"I thought I did. Now I'm not so sure. I thought you were somewhat sane."

"I fall. A lot. Do you remember that?"

"Yes."

"Now cover the ground with ice."

"Freezing rain is your enemy," he consented. She nodded glumly. He looked out the window again, both of them sitting there, staring at the rain. He became aware a few seconds later of Sirius walking in though neither of them said anything. Sirius paused behind them.

"What are you-"

"Shh!"

**Yes very short and, yes, Emma, I have posted this on my facebook notes. But I was angry with the weather earlier today (okay still am because the snow ate my phone) but I'm happy now because my family sent me love and I decided I wanted to post something. Don't attempt to follow my train of thought. But read and review if you'd like!**


	12. By Me

**Title: **By Me

**Disclaimer: **I've been away a while but I haven't been gaining copyright issues to Harry Potter so once again, not mine.

**Universe: **AU. Tonks dies as in canon but Remus doesn't

**Time: **Spans from just after final battle to twenty-one years later.

**Characters: **Remus, Teddy, George, mentions of lots of characters.

**Ships: **Remus/Tonks, Teddy/Victore

**Genre:** Angst, angst, angst (head hitting wall, he he, Puppet Pals)

**Summary: **A reflection on Remus's life after the Marauders and after Tonks.

When your life is torn in half again, you want to say that there's nothing left. After all, two halves make a whole and when you've been torn twice, there can't be anything left, can there? But you find yourself living, breathing, watching all over again as your world crumbles to pieces and struggling with the guilt of wondering why you're alive and those you love aren't. You cry and you curse and sometimes you even scream.

The third time your life is torn in half, you want to curse, you want to scream, you want to cry but it won't come. And all you can do is pick up the impossibly small pieces of yourself you have left and try to keep going on even though your head never feels quite right. You hold your son tight, like he's your lifeline, the only thing keeping you on this Earth and you know he very well might be. If it weren't for him, it would be tempting to fade away, to hide. There would be no one to drag you back this time if it weren't for Teddy. You could hide from Harry, slip away from the sight of the Weasleys, pull apart from Kingsley. This time, there was no sister to cry with like there had been when you came home to find the Dark Mark over your house and your parents dead; no Marauders to support you as you fought, and lost, the custody of that same fourteen year old sister. This time, there would be no Mad-Eye to check on you and yell at you occasionally, no Dumbledore to write you like there had been after your lost three best friends in one swoop. This time you had lost a wife and a last friend; this time, it was your son keeping you on the face of the Earth.

He doesn't sleep through the night yet; his stomach isn't nearly big enough; he's less than a month old. You're grateful, perhaps the first father on the face of the Earth to be grateful his baby doesn't sleep through the night. Because having Teddy cry in the middle of the night gives you an excuse for not sleeping. It works on yourself, to convince yourself you could sleep if it weren't for his crying. When you're lucky, it works on others as well, for a while. In the beginning at least, they pretend to believe you. It takes six months before George Weasley, far from sober, calls your excuse for not sleeping bullshit. You feel their eyes on you, the ones who know he's right, waiting to see who's going to win this one, which half of a pair, the one missing a twin or the one missing a wife.

"Do you need help?" comes from your lips before you can even think of a proper comeback, one Sirius and James would have been proud of, though you're beginning to think the last of that piece of you died with your wife. Then again, you've thought that twice before. "In the store."

He stares at you, everyone stares at you. It's quiet. You're trying to figure out why you said anything at all. A simple raise of the eyebrows would have worked as a reply. George stares, only stares for what feels like ages before opening his mouth, seeming suddenly both uncertain and more certain than he's been in months. "Monday," he replies. "You can bring him," he adds, his eyes scanning over Teddy, asleep in your arms, his hair fading to a mousy brown that according to his mother, only you would find beautiful. "If you can keep him from getting into merchandise," he puts in, both serious and joking. You nod. And that's how you get your job.

It's slow, but you realize that you need each other. You and George are similar, more so than you ever realized back when you were his teacher. You both lost a half and both had something left behind that had been brought about by the two of you. The difference being that the shop between Fred and George had taken ages of planning and allowed itself to be ignored after the war while Teddy had come about with no planning at all but demanded attention any way he could. You assume that's why you spent the past months mostly sober and George didn't. You assume correctly. The store becomes demanding again once reopened and he's drying up, though he's still angry at the world, still dizzy, still stubbornly refusing to let a healer give him a good copy of an ear. You understand that. You're still wearing your wedding ring.

A year passes by from that day and you wonder how. You're not sure you remember it. Teddy's learning to walk; you bring him to the memorial and he refuses to sit in your lap. He squirms down until he gets his feet to the floor and starts using the backs of the chairs in front of him to move. You have to pick him up and leave as people glare at you for the touch they felt to their rears. He calls you "dada" as you get outside, his proud first word he picked up a week before. You spend the anniversary of her death with Teddy's hands tight around your fingers as he picks his steps along the grass that a year before was soaked in blood. Your stomach sinks but Teddy is happy, naïve and ignorant for the time being. He laughs as his feet squish in the mud, confident that he has you for balance, his hair turning pink. And you think that really, that's the most of a memorial you need. You haunt Hogwarts with Teddy on May 2nd but you don't attempt to go to the service again, not until he's further grown. You go once together when he's twelve and then he suggests sticking with wandering the grounds instead of attending again. You agree without question.

Teddy grows. Of course he grows. And while you want to say he becomes more and more like his mother, he becomes more and more like you. She was right about his ears; they're yours, and so is the nose. But he's got her eyes and her hair, even when it's turquoise. But he talks like you, walks like you, and he doesn't remember his mother, not that he would. He was far too small. But you wish he did because you don't think you can describe her quite as well as you should be able to, not the way he should hear it. He wants to know the broad story, not the little details; he wants to know everything because he knows nothing and you remember the nothings that meant everything. But he's a little boy and he doesn't understand and you don't try. You tell him she liked things to be fair. The next day, you notice he looks pale and then realize he's still a lot like you; he likes to be liked. You almost don't have the heart to correct him but they'll send him home sick from school if he goes looking like that so you tell him what you meant. He likes that answer better.

You strain to look for her in him and sometimes you find nothing at all. You search for her laugh and find he picked up George Weasley's by being around the prankster so often; her clumsiness and see Kingsley's grace; her outgoing front and realize he's somehow picked up shyness though you don't know where. But when you're not looking it's there, plain as day in front of you. He stubborn as can be, more stubborn than you even and it makes you smile. He's kind to people. When he decides to love someone, he throws himself in all the way; they have the power to make his day brighter with a simple word or gesture but they have the power to shatter his heart into a million pieces as well. You feel guilty as hell after her cat dies when he's five, when he comes home after his first break-up, when he finds out that you left his mother not once but twice. Because you can see her in the way his heart breaks and it's clearer every time what you put her through.

They ask if you're lonely, tell you to date. You say no but they still set you up and occasionally you go, even asking someone else out on your own every once in a while. But really, she was once in a lifetime. Somewhere along the lines, someone always cares, not that you allow them to get that far very often, perhaps only once or twice. A couple leave because of Teddy; they don't like the idea of dating someone with a son. Most of them leave at some point because you're a werewolf; some like the danger for a while and then want to move on and some dismiss themselves as soon as they hear the fact. You're used to it. Teddy doesn't like it as he gets older, once he gets to the point of realizing that girls don't spread a contagious disease to every boy they touch. When he's sixteen, you get into a fight about it. You tell him he's overly-idealistic, the same as his mother was. He thanks you and storms away, turning his hair pink out of what you know is spite. It works.

Teddy has better luck with dating than you do. He has girlfriends and relationships not just dates. He has three at different times to be precise: Morgana, Anna, and Victore. You saw the last one coming for miles, everyone did. And the thought strikes you for the first time in years, since Teddy was too small to even fully roll over, how long he's going to need you, how long before you can disappear. Because you're tired. You still transform once a month and can't get a hold of Wolfsbane every month at that. You're not quite sixty, young for a wizard, but you feel near a hundred. You miss her, miss your friends, miss your family. But you're not going to let Teddy be alone.

They're married when he's twenty-one; she's only a year out of school but they've wanted to be married for a year and a half now. Fleur wanted them to have a longer engagement; she wanted to be able to have a proper wedding, adding that it was especially important since you and Teddy's mother never had one. Teddy asks later if his mother was pregnant when you were married; the dates are awfully close. Harry and Ginny are there and you notice they're both listening; they had wondered the same thing. Lily too is paying attention. She's twelve and starting to become interested by romance and figuring out how everyone in her world had gotten together. You finally confess that you don't know. There were possibilities for both. It isn't until later that you think to wonder about Victore and why exactly Teddy was asking. Two months later, it's becoming obvious but two months later and transformation is starting to get harder. Three months later and it takes you a week to recover; you gnawed furiously on your wand arm and severed a nerve that couldn't easily be repaired; you have to learn to do spellwork with your left.

The baby's nearly here seven months after they're married, two weeks till she's due, the night of a full moon. And Teddy needs you. After all, he's clueless and over halfway to panicked and Victore's not much better. You've done this before, alone nonetheless. But of course things don't work out so neatly do they? So many years expecting death from a war that doesn't slay you but in the end, you're still killed. By me.

* * *

"Dad!" he yelled, running down the stairs. The blood seemed obvious from the door. Had he gotten Wolfsbane this month? Teddy was never for sure. "Dad," he said, his voice more breathy as his knees hit the hard ground, his hand reaching for the wrist of the man in front of him, already knowing the answer. There was no cure to lycanthropy but his dad was human at midnight on the night of a full moon. "Dad," he muttered a third time, tears coming to his eyes, dropping the wrist on the still warm body. The wolf had finally taken Remus Lupin.

**Grr, I'm a terrible person. ****Disappear for ages and then come back with a very strange story written in 2nd person (mostly because I wanted to see if I could finish a story in 2****nd**** person). I'm really, really sorry and I can't make any promises to start posting more. I've worked on things but one won't allow itself to be finished and one is a Remus/Tonks story that's NOT a one-shot and currently would look like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle if it were, you know, spread out like one on a timeline. So anyway, sorry for the major angst and please let me know if you think I completely fail at using the 2****nd**** person.**


	13. Snip

**Title: **Snip

**Disclaimer: **Again, like, totally not, like mine.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Pre-epilogue by about thirteen years.

**Characters: **Victoire, Dominique, Bill, Louis, Fleur, Molly I, mentions of other Weasleys

**Ships: **I suppose Bill/Fleur and Arthur/Molly in the way background

**Genre:** Family, slight humor, sibling rivalry

**Summary: **Tori was only doing what her little sister asked…

Stupid baby, Victoire thought to herself. She didn't like the new baby. What did Louis do but scream and cry and smell funny? Didn't they already have one of those? Her Uncle George and Aunt Angelina had one already who screamed and cried as much as her baby brother did without actually living in _her_ house. But everyone was all happy over him and happy because Aunt Ginny was going to have one as well, at least so she had said. Her stomach didn't look huge yet, not like Mum's or Aunt Angelina's had been and they hadn't even been close to Aunt Audrey what felt like ages ago before Molly and Lucy were born. Victoire growled and slumped back on the couch as people continued to coo over Louis. She hoped he pooped on them.

And as if that weren't enough, when her grandparents were done cooing over Louis, they went and cooed over Dominique because Dominique could talk in sentences now, whatever that meant. Victoire could write the whole alphabet and spell her name and count all the way to twenty, sometimes. She could do a somersault and a cartwheel, kind of, and brush her own teeth and she knew loads more words than Dominique. With a huff, Victoire got up from the couch and marched away, annoyed with them for not noticing her. They still didn't care. Her dad looked up as she passed.

"Bathroom Tori?" he asked her gently. She didn't answer him but added that to her list. She could use the toilet. Dominique could only do that sometimes and Louis couldn't do that at all. That's why he smelled so much. And she took a bath without screaming, she added. Dominique cried every time she heard the word bath and Louis had screamed all this morning when Mum had given him his first bath and for like _hours_ afterwards.

Victoire ended up in her room and about screamed. Dominique was in there playing with one of Victoire's dolls. It wasn't enough that Dominique stole any attention that wasn't given to Louis, she _had_ to steal Victoire's stuff as well. "That's mine!" Victoire yelled, starting to break into tears.

"No," Dominique protested as she dropped the doll and clumsily got to her feet, heading for the desk Victoire had in the corner of the room. It used to be the extra bedroom and Victoire had gotten to work on coloring and writing when Mum or Dad was working on things in that room but now the baby was in that room and Victoire no longer got to work with them. Victoire picked up her doll and hugged it tightly to her chest as Dominique reached out and grabbed Victoire's safety scissors.

"Those are mine," Victoire told her, dropping her doll in order to go steal the scissors back from her sister. Dominique held them up to her head.

"Cut," she proclaimed, moving them back and gripping the sides in her fists, attempting unsuccessfully to pull them apart. She moved them back toward her hair. "I cut," she added, tugging on her hair. Victoire stopped, looking at her little sister. Her sister had hair like Mummy, not orange hair like Victoire and Daddy had. Everyone had orange hair like Victoire and Daddy. People loved Dominique's hair. They would notice if Victoire had blonde hair.

"I'll cut it," Victoire told her sister before yanking the scissors out of her sister's hands. Dominique started to scream until Victoire cut the first strand and it dropped to the ground. Dominique bent down and picked it up, staring at it in fascination as Victoire continued to snip her hair.

There was hair on the ground when Victoire was done. Dominique had gotten bored and picked up one of Victoire's crayons but that was okay. Victoire didn't need it now. She grabbed all of Dominique's hair from the ground. There wasn't that much of it even though Dominique's hair had nearly been down to her shoulders and everyone said that was long for a toddler. Still, it would work. She grabbed her glue from her desk and squirted it out onto some of the hair before sticking it on her head. Dominique watched her with wide eyes.

"Tori, Nickie!" her dad called. Victoire hurried up, her hands getting sticky with glue. Dominique started handing her pieces of hair, seeming fascinated by her big sister. "Tori, Nick-" he started, getting closer and then he came to the door. "Victoire Catherine Weasley!" he said, his voice getting loud. Victoire turned around, looking at him with wide eyes. He had used the Catherine. Usually that meant she was in trouble. "What did you do to your sister's hair?" he asked her, his voice quiet again, but he was looking at her in a way that assured her she was in trouble. "And your hair?"

"I only cut it," Victoire replied but he didn't seem to be listening as he went forward and tugged on one of the strands of Dominique's hair in her own. "Ow!" she told him, feeling tears coming to her eyes. He had already let go.

"Victoire, did you glue Dominique's hair to your head?" he asked, his voice low.

"It's my hair," Victoire said stubbornly. He shook his head at her.

"No," he told her flatly. "You do not cut anyone's hair, Victoire and you don't glue anything to your head."

"It's my hair!" she persisted. "I don't want boring hair. Nickie didn't want it anyway. She wanted me to cut it."

"You don't get to cut anyone's hair."

"But she didn't want it! I-"

"Time out," he told her firmly. "You don't get to argue with me," he insisted before picking her up and setting her on her desk chair. She stared at him wide-eyed for a moment before starting to cry. Daddy picked up Dominique and left the room, leaving the door wide open. Victoire didn't move. Daddy would come back and put her back on the chair until she stayed.

"Bill," someone called up the stairs as Victoire began to snuffle. "Is everything alright?" the voice continued, coming closer. They were almost up the stairs. "Bi- oh dear." Victoire started crying again, though not as loud as before. "Somebody got a haircut."

"Tori," her dad replied to her grandmother. "She cut Nickie's hair and then glued it to her own head." Victoire began to stop crying again, moving back down to sniffling. "You don't seem at all surprised."

"Bill, dear, you did the same thing to Charlie when you were five."

"I- No, I did not. Must have been Charlie to Percy."

"No, it was you to Charlie. Only you used Spellotape and we couldn't get it out. We had to practically shave both your heads. Percy was possibly the only one-month-old to have more hair than his three and five year old brothers." Victoire heard a pause in their conversation as she stopped sniffling. Her head was starting to feel itchy. "You'd probably better get the glue out of her hair soon," her grandmother said. "I'll take Nickie, see what I can do."

"Thank you," her dad replied and Victoire heard steps as he came back. She looked up at him, not saying anything as he bent down next to her, his tall height coming closer to her short one. "Victoire, you're not allowed to cut hair," he told her. She nodded.

"I sorry," she told him, reaching out her arms for him. He reached out and picked her up. "Daddy, I can write my name and do a cartwheel even if I don't have pretty hair like Nickie and Louis," she informed him.

"Oh Tori," he said, a slight chuckle in his voice as he held her close. "I love your red hair."

"As much as Nickie and Louis?"

He nodded. "As much as Nickie and Louis," he replied. "I'll always love you as much as Nickie and Louis."

"I can count and eat my cereal with a spoon _and_ milk," she reminded him. "Nickie and Louis can't and everybody likes them best."

"Everybody loves you. But they all know you're a big girl and you don't need somebody to watch you do everything," he said, leaning forward and kissing her head. He made a face as he looked back at her.

"Daddy my head itches," she told him seriously.

"I would imagine," he replied just a seriously as he set her back down on the ground. "I'd say it's time for a bath."

"With bubbles?" she asked excitedly.

"No," he told her shaking his head. "Little witches who put glue in their hair don't get to have bubble baths." Victoire frowned. "They do however get chased into the tub by the tickle monster," he said calmly and then turned on her, reaching out his hand for her tummy. She giggled wildly and took off running toward the bathroom with her dad right behind her, nearly running into her mum. Her father straightened up, grinning widely and her mother began to laugh as she looked at Victoire.

"Mummy, he's going to get me!" Victoire informed her. Her mum bent down next to her and Victoire drew close, thinking she had a shield when her mother grabbed Victoire's belly and began tickling her before handing her over to Daddy.

"Going to try and catch a nap?" her dad asked. Her mother nodded.

"Louis is sleeping and your mother and father said they would take Nickie for the afternoon and Tori too once the glue was out of her hair." Her dad nodded in return and kissed her mother lightly on the mouth before she slipped away. Victoire stuck out her tongue in response.

"Oh don't start that already," he told her, chuckling as they walked into the bathroom. "Uncle Ron only just learned that kissing can be non-disgusting."

"Bleck," she answer in return and her dad only chuckled again and put her in the bath, covering her eyes as he poured warm water over her head. Dominique's hair began to float out on the water and towards the drain. Victoire was becoming a redhead once again.

**Wanted to do something more lighthearted and not involving Remus or Tonks. This was what came to mind. I've never really written little Victoire before nor have I read anything with her that small that didn't involve Teddy so let me know if you think the idea was completely stupid. Have a good day/afternoon/evening/night/morning/whatever!**


	14. Happy Birthday

**Title: **Happy Birthday

**Disclaimer: **If it were mine, I don't think I'd be posting it online as _fan_fiction.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **About the first/second year of MWPP and co.

**Characters: **Andromeda, Ted, and Nymphadora

**Ships: **Ted/Andromeda. Need to think of/find a neat word for that one. I mean you have to hand it to the Spork's, the Harmony's, Gabby's, and even the Snarry's that they have a cool ship name.

**Genre:** Family, tad bit of romance

**Summary: **Birthdays are a great time for reflection on what could have been.

He was twenty-one years old with a wife and six-month-old baby. He hadn't seen his family since his daughter had been born and he was doubtful he would see them anytime in the near future; it was better if they truly had no idea where he was. This year he had lived in four different places: a flat with his now ex-roommate Brian, two places with Dromeda, and now this place, the flat they had moved into yesterday. Ted stared down moodily at the street far below where cars were rushing on their way. He took a gulp of the beer in his hand as he heard the door behind him open. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Dromeda holding Dora.

It was a tiny balcony, one of the minute things that were more for outdoor decoration than for actually standing on. But Ted liked it; he liked being outside. There was frightfully little of that while living in the city, but of course it was easiest to be lost in the city. He and Dromeda wanted to be lost. They were staying ahead of her family who might track after them if things got boring on the war front.

"I must love you," he told her, "to have given up a normal life for you." At least his job stayed the same. There was little threat in public places.

Andromeda stole the bottle out of his hand. "I think I win. I could have been living in a large house with house elves to cater to my every whim," she reminded him before taking a swig. He rolled his eyes and grinned, stealing it back.

"Since when do sophisticated society witches drink beer straight from the bottle?" he asked her, still leaning against the rail of the balcony. He took another drink and returned to watching the cars. "Besides, you left so you could become a healer, not because you were in love with me."

"That was my priority I suppose," she admitted. He heard the smile in her voice. "But at the time I decided to leave, being in love with you was a close second."

"And now I'm a closer second I'd suppose," he said, standing up straight again and catching her eye. He raised the mouth of the bottle close to his lips but didn't tilt it. "Being a single mother without a family looks fairly trampy. It's better for perceptions to have a husband slinking around." He grinned and took another drink before leaning back down on the railing.

"Mmm, well Nymphadora rather threw my priorities for a loop, yes. There are some days she might even make you my number one reason for leaving."

"Really? Glad to know half my genome is good for something," he answered smirking. He looked over at Dora who was staring at the cars down below, utterly fascinated.

"It's rather unfortunate. I could be in that large house right now and later produce children who wouldn't flash neon colored hair at the neighbors." Ted snorted as Dromeda brushed at Dora's hair. The baby turned to look at her mother and Ted grinned; Dora had taken a fistful of Andromeda's hair.

"But how boring would that make life," Ted replied, standing up straight again as Andromeda untangled Dora's hand from her hair. A good chunk of it had been pulled from her ponytail and was hanging around her face. "Imagine not having to stick hats to your daughter's head every time we need to go anywhere."

"Very dull life indeed," Andromeda chuckled as Ted reached out and pulled the elastic out of her hair, letting it all fall from its ponytail. She glared at him and refused to shake her head, letting her hair stay misshapen along her back. He looked back at the busy street beneath. "Sorry you had to give up your normal life," Andromeda told him, a slight smile in her voice but not enough that she was entirely joking. He turned to look at her.

"I'll live," he informed her, smiling warmly. He reached out his arms and took Dora from her, shifting her to his left side, holding the beer bottle in his right hand. Dromeda ran her fingers through her hair, freeing it of its ponytail-like shape. "I'll only be a little sentimental sometimes. I've never been a huge fan of moving."

"Neither have I," Andromeda replied, rather distantly, leaning against the railing herself. Dora squirmed on his side. Ted smiled and returned to watching the cars. "Happy birthday again, Ted," Dromeda told him quietly. Ted smiled and put his arm around her. She leaned her head against his shoulder sweetly and stole his beer again. Ted laughed to himself. It wasn't a perfect birthday, and it wasn't at all what he would have imagined two years before, but it was, as Dromeda wished, a happy one out on a too-small balcony with the two girls he loved the most in the world.

* * *

Andromeda Tonks came home around two in the morning and stood in the doorway, kicking off her shoes, her feet sore. Something had happened and she was presuming that it had something to do with Dumbledore's Order of the Nutcases. At any rate, there were a bunch of hurt people who would give no true explanation for their injuries, leaving Andromeda and her trainer to try and guess what spells they had been hit by. Andromeda growled as she pulled her robe over her head, folding it in her arms as she walked across the small house to the bathroom, dropping her robe on the towel rack and starting the shower. It took a while for the water to heat.

Her eyes caught on her image in the mirror, a frazzled, tired looking creature of twenty. She sighed and sat down on the closed toilet seat, pulling off her socks. She noticed Ted's socks in the corner along with some clothes of Dora's; Ted's socks looked soaked and she guessed he had forgotten to take them off before giving Dora her bath. For a moment, Andromeda debated picking up his socks and throwing them in a hamper but then only rolled her eyes and threw her socks into the small pile as well. She would deal with it later.

"Wotcher." She turned to see Ted leaning on the doorway, his blonde hair sticking up all over, giving her a sleepy smile. "What has you so thoughtful?"

Andromeda shook her head. "Only a long night," she replied. "I like healing but people can be such idiots. Everyone involved knew they obtained their injuries being vigilantes. A little honesty might have helped us heal them faster." She made herself smile, knowing she only looked tired. "I'd probably be getting married soon," she informed him. "The Black family normally likes to marry off girls around the age of twenty if they can unless circumstances are different."

"Circumstances?" he asked, walking into the bathroom, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes still looking sleepy.

"Younger fiancé, pregnancy, thinking there's a possibility someone may oppose the match soon," she rattled off, waving her hand as Ted stepped closer.

"So you had too of those three," he told her.

"You don't count," she informed him. He didn't answer, but picked her up and set her on the sink counter. She looked at him in his boxers and a sleeveless shirt. There were no pureblood features in his face. His eyes were a bright blue, not the cool blue that sometimes cropped up among purebloods; his nose was somewhat large and not pointed or well shaped; he smiled easily; and he had that blonde hair, golden not platinum. Andromeda smiled. "I love you Ted," she confessed, running her fingers through his hair.

"I love you too Dromeda," he returned, his hand moving from her back to her face, guiding it closer so he could kiss her. She felt herself slipping from the counter and Ted's hands moved to her waist, helping her down, her back staying pressed against the side of the counter as he opened her mouth and began to explore, her hands roaming over his body. The water was still running in the background although it was actually starting to get warm; there was steam beginning to waft from the showerhead. It was the cry that broke through and Andromeda was going to ignore it. Nymphadora was old enough to cry herself back to sleep. But then it registered through her brain; it wasn't her daughter's 'I want out' cry but her 'something hurts' cry. Andromeda sighed and began pulling herself away as Ted realized the same thing she had and stepped back.

Her daughter's cot was out in the living room and Andromeda hurried more as she saw what mess Nymphadora had gotten herself into. "Were you jumping again?" she asked, not expecting an answer from her daughter who wasn't quite fourteen months old. Bouncing was a new habit Andromeda and Ted thought Nymphadora had picked up, though they'd been unable to catch her thus far. Andromeda worked to free her daughter's leg from where it had somehow gotten caught between the bars as Ted walked up behind them. Nymphadora's cries subsided a little but she kept crying slightly, recounting her whole tale in a sobbing language Andromeda figured she was crazy enough to half understand after over a year of hearing it. She picked Nymphadora up and rubbed her back as her daughter continued, her hair slowly turning from an aggravated bright green to a calmer pink. She found her fingers and began to suck on them, her cries disappearing.

Andromeda turned and smiled lightly at Ted who grinned back. Nymphadora looked at him with big eyes, not taking her fingers from her mouth. Andromeda gently put her back down in the crib and she fussed slightly, but her eyes were heavy; she would be asleep in a moment. "Happy birthday, Dromeda," Ted told her as he grabbed Nymphadora's blanket from the ground and covered their daughter with it. Andromeda raised an eyebrow and walked back toward the bathroom, knowing Ted would probably follow.

**Wow, I forgot how much I like writing Ted/Andromeda. They're fun to write. Hopefully it's somewhat amusing to read as well. Anyway, when I was writing The Call, I put Ted's birthday sometime in March though I can't remember the right day; maybe we'll call it the 19th. Andromeda's is in November, the 26****th**** I believe. Not that it really matters but I'm babbling.**

**And yes, I know the legal drinking age is 16/18 in the UK. Ted's not drinking because it's his twenty-first birthday. He's drinking because when the idea of the scene came to me, he was drinking from a brown, glass bottle. And yes, I know it's rather unlikely but Nymphadora would be the type of baby to get her leg caught in her crib bars at an early age. Wow, I need to stop arguing with myself… Uh, thanks for reading! Hopefully you didn't read this author's note.**


	15. Distance

**Title: **Distance

**Disclaimer: **No own Potter. Me poor. No sue!

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Throughout the sixth year.

**Characters: **Um a lot of Weasleys? Plus Tonks, Dumbledore, Remus, and Hermione.

**Ships: **Ginny/Dean, Charlie/OC, Bill/Fleur, Ron/Lavender (with annoyed Ron/Hermione), Remus/Tonks

**Genre:** Letters

**Summary: **Letters between people during the sixth book that oblivious Harry knew nothing about.

**ATTENTION:** Lines of the story in italics are lines I had "strikethrough" on in word but fanfiction doesn't have that format so please bear with me.

9/21/1996

Dear Mum,

Could you please send my green dress? It should be hanging up. I wasn't going to bring it but with all of Slughorn's parties, I think I might want it. He likes me as part of his "Slug Club" I think and I'm not about to object. Apparently he knows Gwenog Jones and he said he might introduce me if she comes around for his Christmas Party. Here's to hoping. Well for me anyway. I know you're not to keen on the Quidditch career idea but at least it's better than a joke shop, right?

Speaking of which, I made it on to the Quidditch team. As did Ron actually, again. We'll see how that goes. But I get to play chaser instead of seeker thankfully since Harry's back in his old position.

Hope you and Dad are doing well, especially with your current house company.

Love,

Ginny

* * *

September 30th

Dear Charlie,

You know, you could write your father and me once in a while. Bill always seems to have news from you which I suppose is a leftover from when you were both abroad. Are you by chance considering moving back? I've asked Bill but he always seems to edge around the topic.

I've heard both Ginny and Ron have been placed on the Quidditch team this year as Chaser and Keeper. Ginny seems quite excited and she seems to be harboring an idea of moving on to professional Quidditch. Perhaps you could pass her name along to some of the friends you made when they were trying to recruit you as well?

How are things? How is the hurt dragon you were working with, Maverin, I think you called him? You seemed quite worried last time you wrote. Although the burn marks were a bit frightening. Please do my heart a favor and refrain from writing on burnt stationary when you reply, would you?

Your father's received a promotion at work, did anyone tell you? He's become head of a newly created department, Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects. Though heavens, I think he really would prefer to be back at Misuse of Muggle Artifacts. Perhaps he can move back once this war is over. Please stay safe.

All My Love,

Mum

* * *

October 9

Bill,

She's good, thanks, though no, I'm not going to tell Mum until I have to. Merlin can you imagine Mum's reaction? One son about to be married and one having a baby. I'm not sure if she'd be thrilled or sad that two of her "little boys" are in her eyes nearly grown up. Probably somewhere in between. At any rate, she'd be heavily depressed that Suz is moving to Romania rather than me moving back toward home. And I'd be in for a lecture about not marrying her right away but Suzy doesn't want to yet, God knows I've tried. We'll see how the situation stands in say, August? Is it all right to bring a baby to your wedding?

Speaking of moving in together, due to letters from both Ginny and Mum, I'd seriously suggest you move Fleur out of the Burrow soon. Neither of them seem to have taken a liking to her and I somehow doubt more time is going to help the situation. Besides, I think Mum and Dad would rather like to have the house to themselves for a while. They never did have much time before you showed up and now even Ginny's in school. Merlin, I'd have been a father for, what, four years now if I'd been like Dad? Scary thought. Oh, and Ginny for some reason is prying into your relationship with Tonks. As she's Ginny and only slightly more subtle than Ron, I gathered she'd like to set you and Tonks together. Have fun with that.

Anyway, got to go, take care and all that. Say hello to Fleur for me. I'd tell you to give Suzy a kiss but then I'd have to get massively jealous of my own brother. And you don't see her often.

Best Wishes (especially with Ginny plotting),

Charlie

* * *

Fleur,

Quick note, sorry. Friend of mine is sub-leasing his flat for a few months if you'd be interested. His name's Edmund James if you want to send him an owl. You can borrow mine. Love you. See you tonight.

Bill

* * *

October 18th, 1996

Dear Mr. Weasley,

Thank you for your help in my moving and allowing me to live in your home in the past months. I hope you are right about Mrs. Weasley and Ginny liking me at a later time. I do love Bill with all my heart.

Fleur Delacore

* * *

October 29th

Dear Ron,

I'm sorry to hear about Katie though I'm glad that you three didn't touch the necklace. I beg of you to stay cautious, and send the message along to Ginny, Harry, and Hermione, would you?

Is everything else alright? How are classes going? I would still advise you look in to taking Muggle-Studies if only for a year next year. It would give you a jump ahead as an Auror. You have no idea how many of them I see bumbling around with no idea that muggles have stopped using swords in favor of guns which really is something they ought to know.

How are your friends as well? Your mother would like me to remind you to ask Harry and Hermione back to the Burrow for Christmas. If Hermione doesn't want to return to her own home that is, which, perhaps she does.

Love,

Dad

**

* * *

ATTENTION:** Lines of the story in italics are lines I had "strikethrough" on in word but fanfiction doesn't have that format so please bear with me. Sorry for the intra-story Author's Note. I am properly ashamed of myself.

Nov. 5

Hermione,

Found your book in my bag. _What the hell was the cursing about? I'm sorry about Look, it sort of suddenly happened and_

Ron

* * *

November 10th, 1996

Dear Tonks,

I hate him! I really hate him. Ron of course, before you ask. Not that you were asking. But in the rare chance you were. There's this girl, one in my dormitory, Lavender Brown and he's never even looked at her before. Well he has but hardly and all the sudden they're snogging in every free space they can find, including right in front of me. I mean I know it's not like there was ever anything official but I thought there was something there? Was I crazy? Please tell me boys grow up eventually, right?

Anyway, I need a witch to talk to and Ginny, the girls in my dorm, and Luna are all out for obvious reasons. Please don't think I'm completely mad.

Hermione

* * *

11/28/1996

Dear Remus,

Dumbledore asked me to send along the Wolfsbane Snape made for this month. Molly, Arthur, McGonagall, and many others send messages but as they're not pertinent and you'll ignore them, I won't pass them along. Basically all are along the lines of calling you an idiot.

_Love,_

_Yours,_

Sincerely,

_Tonks_ Nymphadora

* * *

Dec 10 (aprox.)

Dumbledore,

Full moon passed. GB staking out the residence of the Dodds, one works in Ministry. Warning advisable.

Remus

_P.S. May perhaps be best if Tonks does not send along Wolfsbane potion due to personal reas_

* * *

December the 23rd, 1996

Remus,

I have informed the Dodds family and they are taking precautions. They are grateful for the warning. You should speak to Nymphadora directly if you don't wish her to be the one passing along Wolfsbane Potion although perhaps you are alright with it.

Albus Dumbledore

* * *

Dec. 31

Dear _Nym_ Tonks,

Thank you for sending along the potion again. _It's nice to know that you're doing alright._ I appreciate having it. I beg you to please keep in mind what I have told you in the past; I am too old, too poor, and too dangerous for you.

Begging you to please stay safe,

Remus

* * *

1/8/1997

Dear Hermione,

Hang in there. I know he can be frustrating. Most Gryffindor boys can, trust me. And avoid this MacLaggen character, no matter how much he annoys Ron. He doesn't sound like someone you'd like to associate with all that much. Transfiguring boys into pigs tend to get the message across if he doesn't listen but make sure McGonagall doesn't find out. She'll know to come tracking me down. For that matter, the same goes for Ron and Lavender, if you don't mind. Perhaps you ought to try a different animal.

Don't worry about apparition so much. It's not really something you can learn from a book to be honest, and I know that's scary, but it's really about feeling. And they'll be wizards there to help anyone who splitches. I do wonder if they're going to use the Great Hall or not. That's what they've done in the past, letting down the wards for a while. I should probably ask Dumbledore about it since I'd imagine they'd send you to Hogesmeade otherwise.

And yes, I'm sad Sirius died, but I'm okay; I'm more worried about Remus and my mother on that front. Why do you ask?

Love,

Tonks

* * *

Jan. 16th, 1997

"Won-Won",

If you and "Lav-Lav" don't move your dual cannibalism sessions elsewhere, I will report you to McGonagall and have your prefect badge rescinded.

Hermione Granger

* * *

Jan. 30

Dear Dad,

I have a question to ask you and please don't tell the twins okay? Not that you would but if you even thought about it, please don't. Or Mum either. She's probably be angry or something. How do I break up with a girl? I think maybe I like someone else better than Lavender. Well, I know I do and I think I have for a while. I think I might lo It doesn't seem right to keeping going out with Lavender right? I mean that would be wrong, like stringing her along or something. But I don't want to hurt her.

Also, Ginny was wondering if you could send along some pair of shoes? I don't know. She said they were black and something else. Mum might know.

Ron

* * *

February 11th

Dear Fleur,

Your parents and your sister would be very welcome to stay at the Burrow before the wedding. We always seem to have extra people around during the summer anyway. It wouldn't be any trouble. How old is your sister again?

Arthur

* * *

February Twentieth, 1997

Dear Bill,

I heard from a friend of mine about a house for sail near the ocean. It sounds perfect and right in our price range. The current owners don't want to move out until June or July which is more perfect.

Are you all right? You read the paper this morning and then rushed away and no one has seen you around Gringotts at all since then.

All my love,

Fleur

* * *

2/20

Charlie,

I'll be there tomorrow unless you need to come home. God, why didn't you tell me Suzy was attacked? Clue me in here a bit little brother. I can't be there quickly enough if the first time I know you've lost your girlfriend is through the _obituaries _newspaper. I'll be there.

Bill

* * *

March 4

Dear Mum,

_I need to tell you_

_ I haven't been up to writing back because_

_ Mum I lost_

I'm alright. Only busy. Not much to report. Hope Ron's doing better.

Love,

Charlie

* * *

March 20th

Dear Ginny,

I'm sorry you and Dean keep fighting. Perhaps if you no longer have strong feelings for him, the kindest thing to do would be to let him find another girl. I know you have feelings for another boy even if you won't admit it.

Your father and I are well, I promise. It's a mother's job to worry; you'll find that out eventually. And times like this make it even harder not to.

I know studying for the O.W.L.'s is time consuming but I'm sure you can manage it along with Quidditch practice. Everyone gets stressed about their examinations. Ron and Charlie both managed to get through both quite well and Charlie was captain at the time. You'll do well, I'm sure. Your father and I are very proud of you.

Speaking of Charlie, have you or Ron heard from him lately? I know Bill went to visit him last month but he hasn't written very much. I think something may be wrong.

Love,

Mum

**Dear Lovely Reader,**

** Thank you for being daring enough to read to the end of this story. Don't ask me why, I just liked the idea. Hope you're doing well. And in case you didn't catch it, italics meant strikethrough. :)  
**

**Poohdog/Jessica**


	16. OutGryffindoring

**Title: **Out-Gryffindoring

**Disclaimer: **I'd be a lot richer if I didn't own Harry Potter and not trying to calculate how much of by checking account I can use.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Beginning of the seventh book.

**Characters: **James, Lily, and Sirius commenting on Harry, Remus, Ginny, and Tonks.

**Ships: **James/Lily, Harry/Ginny, Remus/Tonks

**Genre:** Drama? Maybe family.

**Summary: **The answer to Harry's question of how is father would have felt about his yelling at Remus; and Sirius being an idiot.

Harry was asleep and safe from what James could tell. Snape wasn't about to tell anyone where Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix was and therefore, Harry was safe. So James wasn't keeping an eye on him at the moment. He had been with Lily and then, after a while, realized he had no idea where Sirius was. That in itself was odd. Sirius usually showed up once every hour or so to say hi at least. At times, it was almost annoying, not that James didn't love Sirius like a brother. But after fourteen years of as much alone time as he wanted with Lily, it sometimes was a bit strange to have Sirius popping up at the most inconvenient moments. Now, however, he found himself tracking Sirius down with Lily right behind him.

It didn't take long to find him however. Sirius was merely sitting down and watching something though James couldn't tell what. It was something that was going on down on Earth but the image wasn't clear to anyone who wasn't trying to view it. James tapped Sirius on the shoulder and Sirius didn't look up but nodded to show James had his attention.

"What are you watching?" James asked, frowning at his friend. Sirius actually looked quite concerned.

"A game," Sirius answered plainly. James glanced back at Lily who shrugged.

"Who's winning?" James inquired.

"Remus." Lily sighed as James winced.

"I don't think he and Tonks need your moral support," James replied. "It's getting to be rather disturbing you know. I mean yes, rather funny watching Moony try and figure things out the first couple times but I'm pretty sure they're," he paused trying to think of the right phrase. Lily gave him a look to tell him she wasn't about to help, "that they've got it down by now."

"I'll say they have," Sirius replied, finally looking away and toward James and Lily. "But wrong game. I'm watching the game between Harry and Remus: who can out-Gryffindor the other."

"Excuse me?" Lily asked and James was glad she had said it. He had been thinking of saying the same thing but it sounded better coming from Lily. Sirius cleared his throat out of habit before beginning.

"Round one, Remus leaves Tonks with the whole spiel about him being too old, too poor, and too dangerous but Harry counters with leaving Ginny, at a funeral, with his own speech about how it's been wonderful but it's too dangerous for him to stay with her and he doesn't want to go to her funeral. Round one, goes to Harry," Sirius said. "It is true what they say: location, location, location."

"I always thought that had to do with picking a place to go on holiday," Lily commented, frowning. "Or in buying real estate."

"It's a big deal for the out-Gryffindoring contest as well," Sirius replied simply. "Leaving at a funeral trumps only leaving. Now round two, Harry goes first. He snogs the girl on his birthday but then agrees with her brother to leave her alone and ditches her at a wedding the next day to go off and save the world." James nodded, following. "But round two, by far goes to Remus."

"What can he have done?" Lily asked. "He and Tonks are married. They're set."

"Exactly. Remus wouldn't put her through the same thing again," James added. "She told him his reasons don't matter and when she married him he had to have gotten the message through his skull."

Sirius waited patiently until they were done and then smirked. "You're assuming it's only Tonks Remus is now trying to protect." James and Lily stared at him in confusion for a moment before Lily's eyes got wide and she raised her hand to her mouth.

"Oh," she said as though somewhat pained. "No, Sirius, he didn't." Sirius nodded gravely, or as gravely as he was capable of and James looked between the two of them.

"Remus just left his wife and unborn child for the sake of them not having to deal with his reputation as a werewolf," Sirius informed him.

"That idiot," James said angrily. "That utter idiot!"

"How's Tonks?" Lily asked worriedly.

"Asleep," Sirius answered. "She doesn't know yet. The git left her a note."

"I'm going to kill him!" James declared. "Err, metaphorically speaking."

"I'm right behind you," Lily agreed heartedly.

"So you agree round two goes to Remus?" Sirius asked them. Lily glared at him.

"Sirius, this isn't a game! This is bad. Remus leaving his pregnant wife. Pregnant with a baby. In the middle of a war," she kept talking and then glared at him as he didn't seem to respond. "Your cousin," she added, attempting to get her point across. "James tell-"

"He knows," James replied. He sighed as he glared off into space, trying to figure out a way to yell at his one living best friend. And he smiled with pride when Harry did it for him.

**Short little fic I've had around a while and finally am posting. From wondering how James would feel about Harry yelling at Remus.**


	17. Five Times

**Title: **Five Times

**Disclaimer: **No own Harry Potter.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **From eleven years before the first book to four years after the last book, pre-epilogue

**Characters: **Narcissa, Andromeda, mentions of Bellatrix, Lucius, Draco, and Nymphadora

**Ships: **Maybe Ted/Andromeda and Narcissa/Lucius if you squint

**Genre:** Drama, slight angst

**Summary: **There were five times Narcissa thought about contacting her run away sister, five times she wanted to say or do something she wasn't supposed to. Four times she backed-away.

Everyone was assuming she was crying over her father. And maybe they were right. Narcissa wasn't entirely sure. But the moment she had gotten home from the funeral with Lucius, she had thrown herself into the study and started to scribble away. Lucius had left her alone. He might even have gone somewhere else. There was never any knowing when the Dark Lord might call. And that only made things worse.

Her father was dead. Her father was dead a month after her uncle Orion had passed on who had died two months after his son, her cousin Regulus. She was pregnant and she didn't want to be; the last thing Narcissa wanted to do was add another person into the mess she called a family. Her father had been dead a week and her mother was supposed to come live with them in a couple days, something Narcissa hardly wanted and she knew her mother didn't want either. Her mother would prefer to stay in the house she had lived in since she was twenty, long before Narcissa was born. And Narcissa was falling apart. She needed someone; she wanted her big sister and she didn't mean Bella. It didn't matter that she was supposed to have forgotten Andromeda or that Andromeda had done something disgusting and vile; she wanted her big sister to hold her as she cried.

So she started a letter to her sister, beginning simply with the news, informing her that their father was dead as well as their other relatives, which she assumed Andromeda had heard about by now; it had probably been in the papers. But it kept going, she kept talking. She told Andromeda everything she wanted to say about how Bella kept spiraling downwards, about how Sirius had left, about how no one really knew what had happened to Regulus, and about the baby she was carrying. She wrote about her marriage to Lucius and how he would get called away by the Dark Lord. Narcissa poured her heart out as she hadn't in years, if ever. And then she touched the corner of the letter to a candle and watched with teary eyes as it burned.

* * *

It was expected of them to go to the function and Narcissa was pleased to get out of the house. But she would have preferred not to be going to anything involving St. Mungo's. She knew Andromeda worked there, that her sister had gotten a job as a healer and every time Narcissa went anywhere associated with the hospital she was half terrified and half hoping to see her sister. But she didn't see her sister at all that night.

Lucius had dropped Draco, around three at the time, off in a room where the hospital was providing childcare to those who had come for the charity function and Narcissa hadn't thought much more about it. He'd said it was a grown witch working there. But in the end it he had simply seen someone's mother. In the end it was a young girl with bright hair who had been left in the room with Draco and a small sleeping baby. And Lucius had no idea who the girl belonged to. He had been assured everything was all right as soon as she said her mother was a healer and therefore a witch. Narcissa knew otherwise.

It was so strange to see Nymphadora in person though she had known through one person or another that Andromeda had a daughter nearly a decade older than Draco. But in Narcissa's mind, the girl had still remained an indistinct baby, bland and generic. Yet here was a girl of thirteen with the odd appearance of being halfway through puberty. The rumors of her being a metamorphmagus were definitely true; even Andromeda would never let her daughter spell her hair that bright. And Narcissa wanted to ask her how Andromeda was, to ask her what house the girl was in at Hogwarts and her favorite classes, wanted to see if she was a bookworm like Andromeda. Draco was smiling and Narcissa was tempted by the image of Regulus and Sirius smiling, knowing they had won the attention of their favorite cousin Andromeda. But she didn't ask the girl anything. She snapped at Nymphadora and made her opinions about the girl's paternal blood quite clear and then dragged Draco away, ignoring his protests that he wanted his new friend, unbeknownst to him, his cousin, to finish reading the story.

* * *

Narcissa was terrified. She knew about the mass break-out from Azkaban long before it hit the papers and she knew because Lucius brought three of the escapees home with him. They were going to live there, when they weren't somewhere else serving the Dark Lord. After all, they couldn't go home. That was the first place the idiotic Aurors would look. A house elf would know to go looking for the Lestranges in their own home. So they were brought to Malfoy Manor with instructions from Lucius to disapparate if anyone came near. And Narcissa was furious at him and even more furious because she couldn't tell anyone she was angry.

Bella was back. Bellatrix who had been safely locked in Azkaban for nearly fourteen years was back and living in her house, the house Draco would be in over breaks from school, the house Narcissa had to live in. And Narcissa hated that idea. Didn't Lucius know that it was Bellatrix who had led Regulus to the Dark Lord and essentially to his death? Didn't he know that Bellatrix didn't give a damn about anyone's safety besides the Dark Lord, and that included her own? Didn't he know what he'd let in the door?

And Narcissa almost went to her other sister. She almost showed up at the door and told Andromeda that Bellatrix was living in her home and how the Aurors could sneak up on Malfoy Manor to get her out. Andromeda had a daughter who had become an Auror. She could pass on the hint. But of course, Narcissa didn't go. She didn't betray one sister to another. Because Andromeda was the one who was dirty and repulsive and Bellatrix was the one who fought for the right beliefs. But despite all that, the haunting thought remained that Andromeda was the one who was safe.

* * *

She wanted her big sister. How idiotic did that sound? But right now, Narcissa was actually determined to find her. For once, she didn't care what people thought about her. She could say she had gone crazy tonight. She had betrayed the Dark Lord and been part of a battle and for once lost her calm and run around like a chicken with her head cut off. So she wanted Andromeda.

Narcissa wanted to tell her everything. Wanted to start at the moment Andromeda had walked away until the moment Narcissa found herself in the Great Hall, savoring the end at last, her son finally safe. She wanted to recount her tale of how Bellatrix and then the Dark Lord himself had been living in her house for over a year and how she'd been silent for so long. Narcissa wanted to cry. It felt like it had been years since she'd had a good, productive cry, possibly not since she'd had an understanding shoulder.

When she saw Andromeda, she almost ran over, could feel her feet itching to move. But then she saw strong Andromeda, the one with enough courage to leave her family and stay out of this mess, break. There was a healer standing next to her, possibly one of Andromeda's friends from work, and he held her up as Andromeda shook though whether with tears or anger Narcissa didn't know and suddenly, she didn't want to. She had a good enough guess about the cause; she didn't want to know the emotion.

So Narcissa turned and left with Draco and Lucius following behind her. Because she wanted to receive comfort at the moment, not give it. She didn't want to hear how someone else had lost their child on the same night Narcissa had gotten to keep her own; she didn't want to think about the niece who had once made Draco smile now being dead on the floor. She didn't want to so she didn't.

* * *

It was late at night when Draco came stumbling home and Narcissa found herself wishing he was drunk but he wasn't. He'd gotten cursed by someone out for revenge or perhaps merely their own form of vigilante justice. Narcissa didn't know, didn't care. She knew by the time he came back that it had been several hours. He was deteriorating at an accelerated rate. She dragged him to St. Mungo's as Lucius slept on.

There was a young, twitchy healer assigned to Spell Damages that night and she didn't know how to treat Draco. The curse he had gotten was much more of a war type spell than the family feud type spell the young witch had been trained to deal with and she dashed off to firecall someone before Narcissa or Draco could say a further word. She came back with Andromeda.

Narcissa hadn't seen her sister this close up since they had been teenagers. She seemed so much older and yet no where near as old as Bellatrix had seemed; there was no Azkaban in Andromeda's features. Narcissa was determined that this time she was going to talk instead of remaining silent. It had been four years since the final battle. She was calm enough to start with a simple 'how are you', but Andromeda didn't give her a chance. She introduced herself professionally to Draco who replied back with respect but no confusion, no obvious curiosity. Andromeda began inquiring about Draco's past medical history, if he had any allergies, that sort of thing. Narcissa found her mouth opening, found herself beginning to talk. Andromeda didn't answer.

The younger healer was twitching at the side, looking highly unsure of herself. Andromeda remained tranquil as she treated Draco's wound. Narcissa tried to ask about Teddy and was ignored. "Mum," Draco said calmly, "I don't think she wants to talk to you."

Narcissa's mouth cinched as tight as it had been before. There was no flash of anything in Andromeda's eyes. She finished with Draco and he thanked her respectfully, nodding at her recommendations for post-hospital care as he stood up to leave. Narcissa only managed to stay there for a moment, waiting for something. "We can be okay now," Narcissa found herself saying, only half aware it was her voice. That was at least what finally got a response.

"You didn't write to ask if Sirius was okay or to tell me about father or Uncle Alphard," Andromeda began. "You didn't warn me that Bellatrix was back and you didn't let me know that Ted had died but let me keep worrying about whether he was in pain until I had to hear over the radio that my husband was dead. The one time you met my daughter you insulted her though she was only a child who had done nothing wrong and you didn't even try to say anything to me when she died. You had so many chances, so many times I needed someone," Andromeda told her. "But all of your chances are gone."

**Okay, yes, I'm a terrible, terrible person. ****I don't think Andromeda and Narcissa would make-up after everything that's happened. I don't think Teddy would ever really know the Malfoys unless he did after Lily or Rose, pick your choice, got together with Scorpius.**

**Anyway, review if you'd like because I would certainly like the review. Thanks for reading!**


	18. It's a Shame

**Title: **It's a Shame

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter doesn't belong to me. I wish I was that brilliant, but I am not.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Towards the end of MWPP, Lily, and Snape's fifth year (but not yet at the O.W.L.'s scene)

**Characters: **James, Lily, Madam Pomfrey, Remus, mentioning of Sirius and Snape

**Ships: **pre Lily/James

**Genre:** Drama, pre-romance

**Summary: **A scene between James and Lily the morning after Sirius sends Snape down to werewolf Remus.

Remus looked helpless and he hadn't woken up yet. There were bandages way too far up his arms and they had to be changed far too frequently. James guessed the same thing had happened to his legs and feet but those had been covered by a blanket when James went into the Hospital Wing to check up on him. His friend was pale from blood loss and sweating buckets though not a bit flushed looking; Remus had torn himself apart, quite literally last night. And James was angry with Sirius.

Of course, McGonagall hadn't let him see Remus when they brought him back. James assumed Remus hadn't been conscious then either otherwise he would hardly consent to being brought back by one of the teachers. But if this was the damage after Madam Pomfrey had gotten to try healing him, James didn't want to think about what Remus had looked like before.

James heard Remus groan at the same time Madam Pomfrey did and she rushed over, flipping the boy on his side with her wand right before he began to throw up, his eyes still closed. It was bloody, mostly bloody. And James wished he could tell himself that Remus was throwing-up blood because he had a horrid virus or had drunk a bad potion or had a stomach ulcer or something but he knew the truth. The chunks of meat mixed into the contents where not the chicken Remus had eaten yesterday at lunch; they were chunks of his arms, legs, feet, and hands. James felt queasy looking at it.

"Go Potter," Madam Pomfrey told him firmly.

"I'm fine," James growled back. He didn't mean to growl at Madam Pomfrey; he was smart enough to know that wouldn't do him any good at all. He was angry with someone else, someone who ought to have the sense to know how crazy the wolf would go if it smelled humans and then had them taken away, how it would take out it's frustration on itself, and in turn a very sick looking boy of barely sixteen who was taking another turn at unconsciously throwing everything up into a bucket.

"Now, Potter!" she commanded. James didn't argue. He had half turned around by the time he'd heard her, storming away. He was angry with Sirius. Sirius who had come back last night after having been scolded, not said a word indicating remorse and then slept like a baby. James loved Sirius like a brother, he really did, but right now he wanted to cause him severe harm or at very least pound on him for a while. Friends didn't do this to each other. They didn't set up friends to become bloody messes throwing up chunks of their own flesh. And Sirius had known what he was doing; at some level, he had to have known the price.

"Watch it Potter!" someone yelled and in his anger, James realized he had gotten halfway to the common room and run right into Lily Evans. At any other time, he would have exploited this opportunity but right now he had more important things to do, even more important than professing his love for Lily Evans. He had to go yell at Sirius.

"Sorry," he said quickly before starting to charge onwards in the hallway.

"Wait," Lily sighed in annoyance. James stopped, finding himself peeved that he had to stop at all but of course this was Lily. "Thank you," she told him. James looked at her in utter confusion and she sighed again, crossing her arms over her chest, her forehead furrowed. "Severus told me what happened last night," she informed him. "And I know he won't say it, so thank you. You saved his life."

"I didn't do it for him," James said abruptly. He remembered Sirius last night at one point asking him why he'd saved Snivilus at all. James had glared at him and said nothing.

"I know," Lily replied.

"Or Sirius," he added. "I don't give a damn about Sirius getting into trouble for what he did. I would have turned him in if Snape hadn't. He only got detention for it. Detention. Has he seen Remus? And I didn't do it to save Remus either if that's what you're going to ask even though if you ask me he's the only completely innocent party in this whole mess and he's the one who had to suffer for it the most any-"

"I know!" Lily interrupted him. "I know. It's not fair. Whatever. I know you didn't do it for anyone. You did it because you had to. It didn't matter who was involved you had to. I would have felt the same way. But I'm thanking you because you did save Severus and I'm thanking you because however Remus is now it only would have been worse if he'd actually gotten to Severus. You know he would have torn himself apart forever if he bit anyone. You probably know it better than I do. So get down off your high horse and accept a little bit of thanks because it's the only polite thing I'm ever going to manage to say around you!" James paused where he was, feeling wordless. Lily looked at him, angrily.

"He said he wouldn't tell. Dumbledore made him promise-"

"Oh, please. I've been in the same house and year as Remus just as long as you have. We'd likely be friends if he stopped hanging out with arrogant toerags like you and Black. I can figure things out." James nodded. Lily sighed again, some of her temper draining away. "Is he hurt much?"

"Yeah," James replied shortly.

"Is he going to be all right?"

"According to Madam Pomfrey."

"Do you think he'd mind if I went to see him?"

"He's unconscious and I think he would."

"Fine," she said shortly. And then turned to walk away.

"Hey Evans!" he called out. Lily sighed and turned around. James's face fell. "Don't tell him you know, alright? He hates people knowing. Could you pretend like you don't? For him. Not me. I know you wouldn't do it for me but for Remus could-"

"I can do that," Lily consented, a lot of the anger draining from her face. She looked up at James. "You have all the capability of being a good person. It's a shame that you aren't," she told him and then turned around and began to walk away again. James tried to think of something to protest but his mind was still buzzing with what to say to Sirius and he couldn't think of a good reply before she'd turned the corner. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began trudging toward the dormitory again.

**I know this chapter is short and rather depressing but I wanted to post it to say I'm alive, I will be posting more on "He realized" sometime soonish, and because I kind of liked writing James's perspective on the whole saving Snape's life thing (though I didn't write the actual event). Anyway, reviews are always well-liked and I hope you have a good up-coming weekend.**


	19. Mudblood

**Title: **Mudblood

**Disclaimer: **Getting tired of saying I don't own it. Can it just be assumed?

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **MWPP second year.

**Characters: **Narcissa Malfoy (still Black), Regulus Black, mentions of others

**Ships: **None really

**Genre:** Family drama.

**Summary: **Regulus finds his perceptions challenged.

"Why on Earth did you get into a fight with a fourth year?"

"He was a mudblood Cissy. I should have been able to win."

"Muggle-born," she corrected, glancing over the dark-haired little boy she had made to sit on a desk towards the front of the room, his legs dangling down. He was slight, even for eleven though he had the potential to be handsome one day. A pin on the front of his robe proudly proclaimed him as a first year Slytherin. The girl was a seventh year of the same house.

"Father always uses mudblood," the boy insisted.

"Uncle Orion is not eleven and attending Hogwarts anymore. Using the word mudblood will get you into trouble with teachers and it will make you do idiotic things like starting fights with people who have three more years of magical education than you do. Or worse," the girl he'd called Cissy answered. She had long, straight, shiny golden blonde hair hitting the back of a pristine robe, not a speck of lint or dirt on them. Her shoes beneath were fashionable and didn't have a scuff. As always, she had the look of a person who put a good deal of effort into her appearance on a daily basis.

"But they are not as good as us," he protest again as the girl reached into her pocket for a potion. "I shouldn't have to-"

"By what standard?" she returned, cutting him off. The little boy gaped at her as if she had just let forth a stream of swear words without provocation. "They are not as worthy of magic but time will show you they can be good enough with magic to cause you severe harm-"

"I know," he grumbled. "I got hurt but-"

"Severe harm," she repeated, "or to kill you."

"Bella says-"

"Bella is arrogant and being as idiotic as Andromeda was. Bella can not see enough of the similarities between us and them and Andromeda failed to see the differences. Bella may very well get herself killed and soon if she continues what she is doing."

"My mother says that what Bellatrix is doing is honorable."

"And what honor comes without risk?" Cissy returned. "Have you ever been rewarded for doing something that couldn't have rebounded and made you hurt or embarrassed."

"Father says that you are honorable as well," the boy told her stubbornly.

"What I am doing is not honorable; it is cowardly and I am proud of that fact," she said, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket. The potion sat on the desk next to the boy. "I am going to get married and produce only as many children as I absolutely have to and I am going to avoid this fight, both sides, as best I can. Those who strive to be honorable are idiotic. No good comes to them and no good comes to those who care for them. If you're smart, Regulus, you'll learn that lesson now and not the hard way. Now hold still," she told him as she began dabbing some of the potion on to the green-tinted scrape across his cheek with her handkerchief.

"Ow," he whined. She didn't comfort him but continued what she was doing. Both of them were silent for a moment, Regulus trying to repress further outcries and Cissy merely silent for whatever reason. Eventually she stopped dabbing at his scrape and placed the potion down, her handkerchief on top of it. Regulus's eyes followed her hands and then moved back toward her face. "Do you think mudbloods are the same as us, Cissy?" he asked, his voice hushed and quiet.

"No," she answered plainly, "but if there's one thing the fiasco with Andromeda taught me, it is that they are not to be underestimated. They aren't stupid or completely untalented but they simply aren't at the same level as us." Regulus looked at her warily. She sighed as she examined a cut along his collarbone and then picked up the potion and her handkerchief again. "If you ran into a large, fast dog on a street and it was growling at you, would you walk over and pet it?" she asked him. Regulus shook his head, looking even more confused. "Why?"

"It would try and bite me," Regulus answered.

"Do you think the dog is more of a being than you are?"

"A dog isn't a being."

"But you don't underestimate it, do you?" she asked. "You don't think that because it isn't a being it can't hurt you, do you?" He shook his head. "The same thing if you come across a dog who is very friendly towards you and likes to play with you. You don't start to think it is a being even if it starts to love you and is willing to protect you. You still know it's a dog."

Regulus nodded and looked at her. She was putting the potion and her handkerchief back in her pocket. "Muggle borns are like dogs, Regulus. You should always remember that they are lesser than you but they can hurt you. And they are far, far more than dogs. They can use magic and they can feel and hurt and think. They can have every sort of personality and every range of ability. Never forget that," she told him. He looked down, ashamed and slightly looking as if he wanted to run away. Cissy didn't move far enough back to let him slide down from the sink. "But never forget that they aren't worth as much as you. You don't want to turn out like Andromeda. She forgot. She was deceived."

"Mother said she was weak-minded and he made her fall in love with and-"

"Andromeda wasn't deceived by Ted Tonks," Cissy interrupted. "Andromeda deceived herself. Ted Tonks no more knows he's less than us than your useless old owl knows it's an owl not a house elf. He loves her. He thinks they are equals."

"Maybe if we tell him, he'll let Andromeda come back," Regulus said excitedly. "Maybe once he knows, she'll see and-"

"She can't come back," Cissy said sternly. "She left us Regulus. She chose them. She is tainted."

"But she liked me," Regulus said, his voice sounding near the verge of tears. "No one else does anymore. Sirius doesn't like me since he came to school and Bellatrix and you only ignore me, most of the time, unless I do something wrong. Mother and Father ignore me to. They don't play with me or talk to me or-"

"She has her own baby now," Cissy told him. "She doesn't have time to play doting mother to you. You and Sirius were her toys. Even if she had stayed, you would have been forgotten when she had a baby of her own. You haven't lost anything more than you were always going to." She stepped back and Regulus slipped off the desk and walked away from her, his head down, shielding his eyes from her. She gave him time to get ahead and he passed through the door without her seeing that he was crying. Only after the door had swung shut did Narcissa Black leave the empty classroom. It wasn't until after the door had swung shut after her that twelve-year-old Lily Evans climbed out of the cupboard where she'd run after she'd toppled over a suit of armor while attempting to hex James for hexing Severus. They'd heard Filch's voice and they'd both run in opposite directions, James right along with Sirius. And right now, Lily wasn't sure what to feel or what to think although she was beginning to wonder if, perhaps, just a little bit, she felt sorry for Sirius Black of all people in the world. After all, what kind of people must he have grown up with to have his best family relationship be the one who left him behind?

**I wanted to play with Regulus and Narcissa. Somehow Lily ended up the one listening.**


	20. Pretty Hair

**Title: **Pretty Hair

**Disclaimer: **Don't own anything you recognize.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **MWPP; between fifth and sixth year

**Characters: **Andromeda Tonks, Ted Tonks, Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black, James Potter, mentions of "Evans"

**Ships: **Established Andromeda/Ted, hinted James/Lily, joking James/Dora

**Genre:** Family and small children

**Summary: **James goes along with Sirius to see his cousin Andromeda for the first time after Sirius leaves the family.

James Potter was afraid of being hexed.

Normally, of course, he was as all right with being hexed as anyone could be. He gave back as many hexes, curses, and jinxes as he got back so in the end he figured it was part of the price. But this was an entirely different case. He could not hex the person in front of him back; that wasn't why they were here and would likely only make things worse. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, her eyes looking furious and, James realized, frightened. She was scared of him and Sirius. Perhaps they ought to have attempted an owl but Sirius had wanted to stop by as soon as possible. James had never imagined himself as frightening to anyone, though there were a few times he would have liked to be frightening, but whenever he'd wanted to be, it hadn't been to someone innocently opening her front door.

"That's a lovely way to greet your cousin," Sirius joked back. The woman continued to glare, to be scared. James was debating whether or not to say something. His chivalrous side was starting to win; he didn't like seeing anyone so frightened, much less a woman who by logical estimation probably didn't have all that much in combative spells education, despite James's initial fear of being hexed.

"What are you doing here?" she repeated before James fully decided to talk. Sirius sighed.

"I left," he replied. "Last Tuesday. I couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take them anymore." Her wand lowered until it was at her side, though still gripped tightly in her right hand, and her gaze softened somewhat, but she still looked suspicious. "I wanted to see you," Sirius said, his voice casual. "I haven't since I was what, ten? I figured I might as well stop by. This is James Potter by the way. I'm staying at his house." James lifted his hand in a sort-of wave but then pulled his hand back down. The air at the moment was more awkward than the time Remus caught James and Peter singing a duet in the shower (separate stalls of course). Sirius's cousin Andromeda stared at him a bit more and then stepped cautiously back.

"You can come in," she proclaimed, her voice somewhat soft, letting them into the front room. There were stairs right to her side and an open floor that held both the sitting room and the kitchen.

"Dromeda?" someone called. James looked up as Sirius shut the front door and saw the back door opening. There was a fair haired man coming through who apparently hadn't looked toward the front door. He was now rummaging through a box in the kitchen. "Have you seen my packet of tomato seeds?" There was a little girl following behind him though James had no idea how old she was. He was horrible at estimating children's ages. She was younger than eleven. "Drom-" the man suddenly stopped talking as he noticed the two boys in the house. Andromeda turned and looked at him, pointedly. James recognized it as a less severe version of the 'you're an idiot' look he often got from Evans (and sometimes her girl friends, many prefects, most of the teachers, his mother, Remus, and on a couple of odd occasions Sirius and Peter).

"Hello," Sirius spoke up, breaking the air. "I'm Sirius."

"I assumed as much," the man answered. "Ted Tonks. Dora," he added, indicating the little girl who was now looking at James and Sirius while keeping one hand on her father's leg.

"You really do have a daughter," Sirius commented, looking at Andromeda.

"Hmm, I did realize," she answered. James shifted a little where he stood, feeling like he really didn't belong in this awkward reunion. Sirius had asked him to come along and James had said yes, of course. Sirius had wanted to find someone in his family who wasn't a 'completely mad Death Eating idiot'; he wanted to find Andromeda who had left the family before James had ever met Sirius Black.

"Never know what to believe," Sirius replied. James noticed the man gesture with his head at James, giving him an escape to join the little girl and her father instead of the two cousins. He took the opportunity and slipped away from Sirius's side. He felt his moral support would be better given from a different spot in the room.

"James Potter," he introduced himself, sticking out a hand. Ted nodded and shook James's hand back as James became very aware that the little girl was studying him intently.

"Ted Tonks. Think I already said that. I'm Dromeda's husband. Dora's our daughter."

"Nymphadora," Andromeda corrected. James saw the little girl wrinkled her nose causing her father to smile like he was holding back a laugh

"That's quite a name, Annie," Sirius snorted. "Who were you referring to? Great Aunt Elladora? Dorea?"

"Her father," Andromeda replied snidely. "Theodore," she said, stressing the 'dore'.

"And the nymph?"

"Daddy, I want to tell you something," the little girl spoke up, tugging on her father's arm. He bent down closer to her level and she began whispering in his ear. James saw the man fidget a little and he began to assume it tickled to her a secret from a small child. Suddenly, Ted really looked as if he were about to laugh.

"Why don't you tell him that, Dora?" he suggested, looking at his daughter. She glanced at her father and then looked up at James.

"I like your hair," she proclaimed, staring up at him with dark grey eyes.

"Thank you," he replied, uncertain for the first time about a compliment. Was it a good thing or not to be complimented by a child that small? Sirius was beginning to chuckle and Dora's father obviously found it amusing. Dora was looking at the two of them and didn't look very happy about being laughed at.

"It's fluffy like a kitty's fur!" she protested sharply. Sirius no longer managed to control his laughs as chuckles. It had turned into his regular barks.

"Going to tell Evans that line, are you?" Sirius asked. Dora stamped her foot, apparently really not enjoying being laughed at.

"It is!" she insisted, scrunching up her face as if in pain from Sirius's laughter, her hair turning to be the same as James's only longer and girlier. James decided that he rather liked his hair longer at about the same time Sirius sharply stopped laughing. James realized that a little girl had just purposefully controlled her magic to change her hair about the same time Sirius began to laugh even harder than before.

"Squibs, they tell us Annie? Breeding with 'mudbloods' and muggles will produce squibs? And you go and have a metamorphagus for a daughter?" Sirius swore with delight. "That's the way to show them! Props to you Dora. And I suppose you too," he added, glancing at Ted who was far less amused than Sirius but still genuinely smiling.

"Do you want to head outside with us?" Ted asked quietly, glancing forward at his wife and Sirius.

"Thanks," James replied. The man nodded and then scooped up his daughter, leading James toward the back door. Outside was a small garden with dirt all around. It looked as if every inch of land had been recently turned inside out.

"We moved here about a week ago," Ted explained. "I'm still getting around to planting what I like. Dora's been helping me."

"Took a while for Sirius to find you," James told him. "Luckily, my mother knows the Longbottoms. Apparently you're friends with them?" he asked, trying to find something to say. He really didn't know much about the man he was speaking to at all. Sirius had told him that his cousin Andromeda had left and married a muggle-born named Ted Tonks and they possibly had a daughter and that was the extent of James's prior information; it had more than doubled since James's arrival but it still wasn't very much information.

"Hmm," he said. "They were more Dromeda's friends at school. Actually Faye was her friend. Eventually got to know the parents and Frank and Alice."

"Alice and Frank are Aurors," Dora informed him. "They fight the bad people."

"They're pretty cool," James agreed. Dora beamed. Apparently that was the right thing to say. Her hair was still in the girl version of his.

"Are you an Auror?" she asked. He shook his head.

"I'm still at Hogwarts." Her eyes widened.

"I'm gonna get to go there," she told him seeming even more excited about this prospect. "Right Daddy?" she asked. "Right, right?"

"Yes Dora," he agreed. "Why don't you be a big help and go water the beans for me, please?" he asked. She nodded eagerly and bounced off toward a section of the garden, her father looking after her, grinning before turning his attention back to James.

"She goes a mile a minute until she'll suddenly crash," Ted informed him. James grinned. "But for the most part she's a good kid. At least, I think so," he added with a shrug.

"How old is she?" James asked, glad for a topic to seize on.

"She's four," Ted informed him. "Four years old with the balance of a two-year-old and occasionally the wisdom of a forty-year-old." James glanced at the girl who was literally bouncing around. "It's rare," Ted added, "but it happens. Don't realize how much she's picking up of Dromeda and me talking about the war until she starts reciting it back." Skip, skip, bounce, crash, blink, bounce up, jump, jump: James's eyes followed the little girl's movements. Her hair had turned bright pink though it was still messy like his. She was lugging a watering can that seemed half her size around with her.

"Are you in Sirius's year?" Ted asked him. "Headed into sixth year, right?"

"Yes," James answered and almost returned, "You?" but managed to refrain. "We're both in Gryffindor. Sirius is, by the way not Slytherin."

"Words gets around," Ted replied. "Dromeda keeps her ear out for information about her family still. Both for our safety and because she wants to know," he admitted. "She's known for a while. She still worries about him and Regulus from time to time."

"Regulus is in Slytherin and he's not in any trouble, at least not the kind that Sirius was in. Sirius says he acts as a perfect pureblood," James said, hoping that Ted would repeat the statement to Andromeda and she wouldn't worry. Tonks gave him a slightly forced smile.

"Then he's in more danger than Sirius. Death Eaters are dangerous to everyone, including their own kind. No one knows that better than Dromeda."

"Bean, beans drink water, water, water, beans drink water, grow into beans with water," Nymphadora started singing. James frowned.

"You're not around kids much are you?" Ted asked him with a grin. James shook his head as the back door opened and Andromeda and Sirius came out in time to catch more of Nymphadora's musical creation. Apparently she had quite forgotten her initial shyness around James and Sirius or perhaps she had simply forgotten they were there. James watched as Andromeda leaned her head against her husband's shoulder and then glanced back as James's hair-type twin fell into a patch of mud and then giggled.

"Nymphadora," Andromeda sighed and then walked forward towards her daughter. "Now you need a bath."

"It's only a little mud," Ted returned.

"Bath!" Nymphadora said excitedly, dropping the watering can.

"Go inside then."

"We'll get going then," Sirius said, glancing nervously at James. "Can I write?"

"Please do," Andromeda replied. "It's nice not to be the only one." Sirius nodded in return.

James jumped as something came back and hugged his legs. He glanced down to see Nymphadora clinging to them. "Bye pretty hair boy," she told him. James laughed and looked down at her.

"Bye Nymphadora." She glared at him very seriously.

"My name's Dora." James apologized and then left with Sirius.

"Good-bye Dora," he corrected, leaning down to her level. She smiled and then leaned forward quickly and left a sloppy kiss on his cheek before bouncing inside. Her mother rolled her eyes and followed. Sirius started to laugh.

"So I see you've got a girlfriend now Prongs. Evans will be pleased you've finally given up on her."

"At least she's cuter than your last girl," James retorted. Ted Tonks grinned and then went back to what he was doing.

"You're only saying that because she had your hair," Sirius replied as they headed towards the side of the house to get back to the front, waving at Ted as they left. The man was smiling as they waved.

"Why not? My hair is pretty," James bragged. Sirius reached over before James had a chance to react and tugged on a strand of James's hair. "Ow!"

**Though I don't think they were ever as close as they could have been, I do think Sirius probably went to see what happened to Andromeda and I can see him not entirely sure he wanted to go alone. So James came along. As for the rest, well, small children make life interesting…**


	21. Flash Regret

**Title: **Flash Regret

**Disclaimer: **Mine this is not.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **

**Characters: **Andromeda, Nymphadora, Ted

**Ships: **Andromeda/Ted (though no real romance)

**Genre:** Drama I suppose

**Summary: **Nymphadora is sick and Andromeda is forced to realize just how little she was prepared to have a baby.

She was screaming. Full on screaming and wouldn't stop. And Andromeda felt like she was about to cry right along with her six-month-old baby who wasn't wet, didn't want to eat, and was refusing to be comforted for more than five minutes. A few times she had fallen lightly asleep but not long after she would wake up bawling again, waking up Andromeda again who was desperately trying to catch a little bit of sleep. Ted was at work; he had the night shift and Andromeda was supposed to work in the morning.

"Nymphadora, please?" she begged, realizing she sounded utterly helpless. She was pleading with her own daughter. "What's going on?" she asked again, leaning over the rail of the cot. Nymphadora continued crying, her face completely red, and tears streaming from her eyes. Andromeda reached down and picked her up, patting her daughter's back. She felt strange. Andromeda held her close and pressed her lips to Nymphadora's forehead. It felt warm, not that it was surprising to Andromeda that her daughter finally had a fever. She was normally fussy when she was tired and starting to fall asleep but this wasn't her usual "tired" cry. Andromeda had long figured out how to deal with that.

Nymphadora started breathing rapidly as if attempting to catch her breath and her crying subsided a bit as she stopped tugging on her ear and put her fingers in her mouth, looking pathetically at Andromeda, the tears still clinging to her eyelashes. Andromeda started walking toward the bed side table where she'd left her wand, holding Nymphadora close to her and patting her back. Taking a temperature was an easy task; she did so quite often at work as a Healer-in-training, though of course, no one really came into the Spell Division at St. Mungo's complaining of a fever alone, not one caused by a normal infection at any rate. Suffice to say, Andromeda had no idea what to do about a sick, non-hexed and non-cursed baby.

She started up a muffled cry as soon as Andromeda placed her wand on her forehead, even though she pulled it back immediately. As of yet, Nymphadora was refusing to remove her fingers from her mouth. She had a fever, not a dangerous one but a fever nonetheless. Andromeda slipped her wand back into the waistband of her pyjama bottoms and began walking around the flat rubbing Nymphadora's back, hoping to think of some way to cure whatever problem Nymphadora had or better yet, for the illness to suddenly disappear.

This was the sort of thing she was certain most witches and wizards hoped to learn from parents and friends and babysitting experience, very little of which Andromeda had. Her parents and siblings hadn't been speaking to her for well over a year, most of her friends had decided to be "smart" and wait to have children until after the war (which Andromeda would have whole heartedly chosen had there been any planning involved), and Black's didn't babysit anyone; what did teenagers of a prominent pureblood family need with job experience or even experience with children? That was why nannies and house-elves were there.

But she did know some basics, all of which seemed against her at the moment. Pepper-up potion couldn't be used on children four and under; it could cause permanent damage to their ears. Any sleeping spells were far too strong until the age of eleven or twelve; the mildest of sleeping potions were only for children six and older. Most spells for pain Andromeda knew were rarely used on patients under seventeen.

Nymphadora was screaming bloody murder again, her fingers out of her mouth, covered in spit and tugging on her right ear (which was now subsequently covered in slobber). Andromeda began pondering what a lowered dosage of a sleeping potion would do. Surely Nymphadora would feel better if she got a little bit of sleep. But then, Andromeda didn't have any sleeping potions on hand, much less any she could give in a small enough dose that it wouldn't be dangerous to an infant only half a year old. She shifted her daughter to her other hip, forgetting she had shoved her wand into her pyjamas around there and felt her wand spark against her thigh. With a yelp, she placed Nymphadora down on the bed so she could deal with her own injury, something Andromeda actually knew how to treat. Wand burns were very common. She'd actually seen a lot of them in late August as new students had first gotten their wands before starting Hogwarts.

"Dora," she sighed quietly, leaning over her screaming baby who was lying on the bed, with her right hand tugging at her ear still. Andromeda's hair fell close to her daughter's face, normally something her daughter would have taken the opportunity of and grabbed but she hardly un-scrunched her eyes enough to see her golden chance. Nymphadora's own hair was a highly agitated shade of dark green that Andromeda was starting to hate. She was beginning to long for the pink her daughter wore when she was smiling or the yellow when she was hungry or even better than any, the mousy brown when she was deeply asleep. Merlin, Andromeda wished she would sleep. She had a strong feeling that both she and Nymphadora would feel a whole lot better with some sleep.

Andromeda gave up and sat down on the bed, her back against the wall, scooping Nymphadora up again in both her arms, pulling her close. Her screaming began to quiet again until she brought her fingers to her mouth and then slowly fell back asleep. Afraid to move her when she had been sleeping so little, Andromeda felt herself drifting off where she was, sitting up in bed with the baby in her arms. It lasted far too little time before Nymphadora woke up again and the crying began again. Andromeda was giving up. She was feeling hopeless. She was getting Ted. Andromeda couldn't think of anything to do anymore.

They weren't connected to the Floo. In fact, they didn't really have a fireplace in this flat. And Andromeda knew she was far too tired to apparate anywhere with a baby in her arms, which left sending out Pip, Ted's owl. She went back to pacing with Nymphadora in her arms and she did calm down again, enough so that when Ted apparated into the flat, Nymphadora was calm, or at least, she was the moment before. At the sound of the pop she began screaming again, her hand headed for her ear again and Ted looked slightly frightened as he walked over and took the baby from her.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't think of what to do and she won't stop and she won't sleep. She'll eat but that's-"

"It's fine," he called above her cries. "They really didn't need my help as much as they thought anyway," he replied. "Dora, what's wrong?" he asked her, bouncing her a little. She continued to cry though she'd stopped screaming shortly after the pop from Ted's apparition. "Has she been tugging her ear all night?" Ted asked Andromeda, looking up again.

"On and off," Andromeda replied. "Why?"

"Calvin, my nephew, used to get ear infections all the time. My sister Marianne said he would tug on his ear. He had to get tubes put in eventually," Ted said, rubbing Nymphadora's back fluidly, as though he didn't even realize he was doing it. Andromeda found herself slightly annoyed by the fact that he seemed put together, that he had figured out a possible reason within five minutes when she had come up with nothing.

"I could look it up," Andromeda replied, ignoring her annoyance and walking toward the bookcase. Ted followed behind with Nymphadora still in his arms as Andromeda searched for the book she was looking for and pulled it out. Her finger slid down the index looking for any page on ear infections and sure enough she found one on page 264 of Magical Cures for Non-magical Ailments. "Hold her still," Andromeda told Ted, pulling out her wand again. "And keep her hand out of the way." Ted's grip tightened around Nymphadora and he grabbed her arm to keep her from putting it against her ear again as Andromeda put her wand near Nymphadora's ear and cast the spell. The baby screamed again before yellowish fluid started coming from her ear and her crying started to subside slightly.

"Go to bed, Dromeda. You look nearly dead," Ted told her as he pulled out a dirty handkerchief and then shoved it back in his pocket, apparently deciding it would be no good at cleaning Nymphadora's ear. He began walking towards the toilet to get toilet paper, bouncing the crying baby slightly as he went. "You ought to get some sleep." Listlessly, Andromeda nodded. Her feet led her back to her bedroom and into bed where she laid down and tried to sleep, but it wasn't coming. There was a bitter taste in her mouth.

She'd felt regret. She had been holding Nymphadora and thinking that if she'd never decided to stay with Ted she wouldn't be in this predicament. Likely, she would be sound asleep instead of trying unsuccessfully to end the unceasing cries of a six-month-old infant. And Andromeda hated herself for the flash of regret. She loved her daughter more than she loved herself. What kind of mother considered a life where her daughter didn't exist, even for an instant?

But then, what kind of person, really truly, walks away and never looks back?

**Yep, I'm still around.**

**Anyway, if you wanted to know this is in the same continuity as The Call though obviously set a while afterwards. It basically started off with the last line (not written down yet but I just had the idea in mind) and grew from there.**

**Also, on a random note, I'm on Pottermore as WombatSickle147 (Ravenclaw, black walnut and phoenix feather wand). Add me if you like but let me know you're from otherwise I'll probably just ignore the request.**


	22. Pretty

**Title: **Pretty

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter or his "sidekicks"

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Right before Ron and Hermione's wedding (which I'd put before Harry and Ginny's but it doesn't really matter)

**Characters: **Hermione and Ron

**Ships: **Ron/Hermione

**Genre:** Overly fluffy romance. I'm sorry.

**Summary: **Ron and Hermione are unpacking their new house when Ron stumbles across some fraudulent books he thought Hermione would have gotten rid of long ago.

A loud crash made the floor shake and Hermione's heart went wild as she automatically began searching for her wand. She stopped as she turned around and saw the source of the noise leaning casually against the wall. "You have a lot of books," Ron informed her. There was a box of books he had dropped on the floor near his feet.

"You knew that already," Hermione replied testily. He didn't seem to be bothered. She sighed. "I told you I would take them inside," she said rather resignedly.

"I figured your arms could use a break," he answered. "That and my books are already unpacked."

"Books plural?" Hermione asked him.

"Yes plural," he replied.

"Comic books don't count," she told him.

"I'm not counting comic books," he answered. "I have books plural but you still have too many books."

"Oh, wait, I forgot about 12 Fail Safe Ways to Charm Witches," Hermione replied with a smirk. "That plus your book on the Chudley Cannons would make the number up to two."

"I have two books on the Chudley Cannons," he answered as if it was a valid argument but Hermione caught from his smile that he knew it wasn't. Gently he stepped forward, just a little too close for a friend-to-friend conversation. "As if you ought to comment. You have two copies of Hogwarts: A History."

"The new edition has loads of information the old one didn't."

"Most of which you found out firsthand," Ron replied. "The Chamber of Secrets, the story of the lost diadem, the Triwizard Tournement," he began to list, ticking them off on his fingers.

"You read it?" Hermione asked.

"I perused the table of contents," he replied dismissively. "Honestly, I was hoping for a bit of a reward for dragging your books up here without magic. A kiss at least," he told her, changing the subject. Their new home had muggle neighbours. Moving things from outside to inside required lugging them around my hand. Hermione rolled her eyes and turned away from him, walking back toward the bookshelves where she was stacking her books. It felt nice to have enough shelf space to put them all after her tiny flat. "Oh fine," he replied and then walked out of the room again. Hermione smiled a little as she moved on to the next shelf, happily placing all her books in their new homes. This place was home.

This time tomorrow, Hermione Granger would be getting ready to get married, probably getting on her dress or having her hair done or something of the like. Two days from now, Hermione Granger would have been married to Ron Weasley for nearly a full day. This place here would be their home together. "I think we need to talk," Ron's voice called from somewhere in the house. Hermione's smile faded, wondering what was wrong. She heard the front door close and Ron's foot steps heading toward her new library room again.

"About what?" she called out. Ron didn't answer for a moment before he came through the doorway again and dropped the next box of books. Hermione watched him uncertainly.

"You still have all your Lockhart books?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I- well- I-" she flustered.

"You know he was a lying, credit-stealing git," Ron pointed out.

"Well, yes I do but he did get the stories from someone," Hermione attempted.

"Yeah, most of which have by now been told from those someone's. Dennis Creevey has found most of them you know."

"Yes I do. I just-" she stopped. "You're very handsome," she informed him.

"You're trying to distract me," he told her.

"Figure that one out all by yourself Ronald?" she asked him, standing up on her tip-toes to kiss him. He stepped back and shook his head.

"Oh no. You've got to tell me why you've still got all your Lockhart books. He tried to remove my memory," he informed her.

"That was awful, especially since you and Harry were only twelve."

"I was thirteen," he protested.

"Does that really make it better?"

"No. Why do you still have his books?"

"I think I should be more offended that you still have 12 Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches," she replied. "Who do you need to be charming anymore?"

"You most often."

"Most often?" she asked a bit angrily.

"It's not only for witches you want to get together with you know. There's stuff in there I can use with Mum and Ginny," he answered. Hermione sighed, deciding he was probably right and then went back to putting books away. "So why do you still have all your Lockhart books?" Ron persisted.

"Would you let it go?" Hermione asked, turning back around.

"No," he answered.

Hermione glared at him but he kept his expression rather calm. "I think he's pretty, alright?" she answered.

"You keep his books because you think he's dashing?" Ron asked disbelievingly. "Even I know that's not a good reason to keep a book. If it was, I'd be collecting a bunch of pointless little fiction books just for the picture of the girl on the cover."

"Well it is my reason," she insisted, the corners of her mouth tipped up very slightly as she pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"But he's an idiot," Ron insisted, taking a step closer to her. "And he hasn't even got the ability to cast his memory charms anymore."

"Which is the fault of your wand," Hermione replied.

"You're blaming me for him trying to take my memory?" Ron asked, raising his eyebrows.

"No," Hermione answered. "I'm blaming you for thinking it was a wise idea to fly your father's car to Hogwarts!"

"I was twelve," he insisted. Hermione noticed that she was smiling and she tried to wipe it off her face. "Not all of us were born thirty-eight like you," he told her.

"It's not my fault you haven't an ounce of common sense!" she retorted. "Then or now."

"Yes, because if I had any common sense I wouldn't want to marry someone who keeps a collection of Lockhart books," he told her, a flicker of a grin on his face. Hermione however stiffened. "Just your luck I haven't got any," he continued.

"Yes, just my luck indeed," she said sharply and turned away. A moment later she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I thought we weren't really arguing," Ron said, looking confused and a bit hurt. "I don't particularly care that you have a bunch of Lockhart books, you know. I just don't like him." Hermione looked up at him and blinked before turning her eyes down.

"I felt like a girl," she replied softly. Ron gave her a confused look.

"Hermione, you are a girl."

"No, I mean in his class. It was the first time I felt like I was a girl because he was pretty and he complimented me, even if it was because I had memorized his books. And I felt almost like I was pretty." Ron was looking at her as if he were still confused.

"But why do you need them now? You know you're pretty now," he told her.

"I'm glad you think I'm pretty."

"Of course I do," he told her. "But you do know you're pretty don't you?" he asked her. "I mean, not then because you were thirteen and nobody really feels gorgeous at thirteen. Everyone feels all awkward. But now you know, don't you?" Hermione looked at him and realized what he was trying to say. It hadn't crossed his mind that there were some days she wanted to scream at the mirror or use a hex to change her hair or her nose or her whole self. For a brief second she wished she could hold on to, she saw herself through his eyes. She didn't answer him but smiled and slipped up on her tip-toes to kiss him, wrapping her arms around him. He kissed her back enthusiastically, placing his hands on the small of her back. She stepped back after a moment and he rather hesitantly let her go.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"I told you I'm way better at kissing now."

"I meant- Oh forget it," Hermione told him, turning around to put more books on the shelf. Ron stepped up behind her and kissed her neck. "Ron," she complained.

"We could take a break and unpack more later."

"We could, but we shouldn't. Ron," she repeated as he continued.

"Fine, but I get you all to myself tomorrow night with no Lockhart," he fumed before storming out of the room. Hermione smiled widely. She glanced down at Lockhart's books in the box in front of her and then picked them up and set them on the floor to get to the rest of her Defence Against the Dark Arts books underneath which she began to place on a shelf (except of course her fifth year textbook which she had gotten rid of long ago). Then she put back the Lockhart books in the box and kicked it into the corner. She waved her wand at the box and the words 'to sell' appeared on the front. Ron was right. She didn't need them anymore.

**Hope you all had a Happy (and safe) New Year!**


	23. Amen

**Title: **Amen

**Disclaimer: **Alastor Moody is not mine because Harry Potter is not mine.

**Universe: **Canon.

**Time: **Fifth book after Arthur is bitten but before Christmas.

**Characters: **Alastor Moody

**Ships: **None.

**Genre:** Drama

**Summary: **Alastor Moody has a lot to say to a God that's letting everything happen again.

He didn't burst into flames when he walked in the heavy doors. That was generally a good sign. Alastor walked across the floor, trying to keep his leg quiet as he slipped into one of the back pews of the mostly empty church. Up front a preacher or reverend or someone like that was bustling around. Alastor was not entirely sure what sort of church he had just walked in to and he didn't particularly care. It didn't matter that much. He had something to say and he was fairly sure whatever God there was up there, if there was one, could hear him wherever he said it. But the words came more easily in a church.

"I don't know why they come out more easily here," he confessed in a mumble, half to himself and half to whatever deity was up there. "But they always have, Lord, you know that." Maybe it was that he half thought Voldemort and his Death Eaters wouldn't be able to step foot in a holy place. A lot of times he wasn't sure he should be able to, after all he'd seen and all he'd done.

He ought to pray for Arthur Weasley. Wasn't that what he had come here for? Arthur Weasley was stuck in St. Mungo's recovering from a giant snake bite and Alastor sat there, trying to roll the words off his tongue, a simple "make him better, please, God" but it wouldn't come. He took a breath, and opened his mouth. "You've messed things up again," spilled out of his mouth. He wasn't referring to Arthur, at least not Arthur alone.

"He wasn't supposed to come back, You-Know-Who," Alastor restrained himself from saying Voldemort not out of fear of the wizard but out of respect for the holiness of the church. "Once was enough. Eleven years was enough. More than enough. Haven't You let him ruin enough lives? Hasn't he ended enough lives for You? Don't give me that crap about You wanted them with You sooner. They were good people. They could have done a lot of good down here before You got them back. You could have waited. We needed them!

"And what about Alice and Frank, eh? You don't have them with You yet. What have You done, forgotten about them? You're letting them hang around in some sort of limbo between life and death – this life and the next, whatever. Hell if I know. You do, not me. Probably going to hell for saying hell like this, aren't I? Probably going to hell for a lot of things actually. But let me tell You something. Alice was a wonder. She was smart, she was a good Auror, and she had a life. And You took it all away from her but You don't even have the decency to let her die! Let people mourn for her! And Frank too," he added. His teeth clenched in his mouth. Alice had been one of his. He had trained her, beaten down all her defensive spells, her hexes, and her curses in order to build them back up again, make them better. He had taught her stealth and helped her learn the ethics of the job which she was better at keeping than even him. She had been his, like a daughter. And she was halfway to gone, never to return, locked up in a hospital bed.

For that matter, he had something else to say. "You'd better leave her alone, do You hear? You know who I'm talking about. Overconfident, pink-haired pixie that followed me around. You've taken enough from her. She already lost her childhood to He-Who-I-Shall-Not-Name-In-Church. Give her a break! Let her have the boy and live happily ever after. And for that matter, let him have the girl too. You've been enough of an arse to him already! Taken his family, his friends, everything on top of giving him lycathropy. He loves the girl, she loves him, and aren't You supposed to be all for love? Man and woman as one and all?" he growled. He shook his head. "I suppose I ought to tell You I'm grateful for that one, clumsy little tart though she is. Gives me hope that something good can still come out of this damn war. She was born in it, wasn't she? The daughter of the sister of the one who hurt Alice. Having a good laugh about that one, are You? Well, joke's on you then. I know the irony and I don't care. And you'd better leave her alone!"

He sighed and glanced up. The pastor wasn't up at the front anymore. The church seemed empty other than him. Most of the lights had been turned off. "I've got another bone to pick with You. Quite a few actually but we'll take what comes to my mind. What is it You've got against the Potter boy, eh? Taking his parents wasn't enough? Have to let him get possessed by the snake-incarnate? Or was that all part of some plan to save Arthur Weasley? You want to know something? You could have just not sent a snake after Weasley! Would have worked a whole lot better than further torturing James and Lily's son.

"And while we're on the subject of people You seem to love to torture, how about Sirius? I'll admit he's not exactly living up to all Ten Commandments but to serve all that time in Azkaban just to shut him up in the hole that is his childhood house? What did he do? Did I miss something? A little sex now and again when he was young can't justify losing everything and then being mentally tortured for nearly fifteen years."

He shook his head, leaning back against the pew. "And You used me for it all," he said, more softly than ever before. "You used me to bring him back. Let Barty Crouch impersonate me, use me. You let him! I'm not letting You off the hook for that!" Alastor shook his head, staring at the ground. "I'm not letting me off the hook for that," he added.

"I suppose I am grateful," he said, looking up again. "Still alive. Still have people I care about and for some reason I can't understand I've got people that still love me. Not letting me fall off the edge of the earth just yet, are You? And I don't suppose You particularly like Lord Unchurch-ish-to-Name either, do You? Just do me a few favours will You? Call it a Christmas wish list. I know You're not Father Christmas but I doubt an overgrown elf could take care of all this anyway. Are You listening?

"You're going to let Tonks live, at least longer than me. I can't take that kind of death again or even half death. You're going to get Sirius out of that house and You're going to make Remus be happy whether he happens to like it or not. The Potter boy isn't going to be possessed again, do You hear me? And this time we're going to win for real, no more just breaks, no more waiting while he's binding his time." Alastor closed his eyes. "I guess that's Amen," he said gruffly standing up. Then shook his head. "No, that's not Amen. You've got to get Arthur Weasley well. Amen." Alastor nodded and then stepped out of the pew, heading for the heavy doors again. No one seemed to notice his stomping away.

**I'm not sure if this will be a bit controversial or not. It's religious but not. Anyway…**

**I'm having a bit of trouble getting into writing lately but I kind of want it back. If anyone has any suggestions or challenges (including non-Harry Potter) they find really cool/useful/would like me to do, let me know!**


End file.
